Can COVID save a marriage?

I am dusting off this blog after an 8-year hiatus. So much has happened in my life, career and relationships, including aging nearly a decade. Perhaps the most shaping influence of late has been living through a once-in-a-generation pandemic and the way the last 16 months has reset my priorities, needs, and expectations of myself and the folx around me.

I've realized that I can do with a lot less. Frankly, I've worn the same 5 tops for most of the past year, paired with shorts or joggers, and flip flops most days. The shoes and clothes in my closet have been ignored  -- they're too fussy, constricting, wrinkly, unnecessary -- and I just can't be bothered. Having a closetful of clothes, not to mention several seasonal boxes in the attic, seems frivolous and out of touch with what is important in the day-to-day pandemic life I've grown accustomed to. 

With my classes moved online, my teaching style shifted, and I became more acutely aware of the challenges my students faced in just showing up. Zoom fatigue was a real thing. The economic disparities of their lived experiences - who they lived with, how they lived, how hard they had to work as essential workers during the lockdown - was impossible to ignore. I watched my daughter, a senior in high school, struggle with isolation, the lack of social interactions, and the uncertainty her generation would face in the future. 

As a therapist, I supported my clients adjusting to pandemic life while doing so myself. This brought us closer in many ways as our lived experiences were relatable and more clearly understood. Despite many sessions talking through the fears of the unknown, the loss of loved ones, the financial struggles and socio-political upheaval of 2020,  there were also many conversations with my clients about what possibilities were opening up for them now that they had some time to re-evaluate their lives, how they wanted to live, where and with whom. Suddenly multi-generational families were the norm and folx were moving to wide open spaces and discovering different ways of being in community with one another.

During this time, my husband of 20+ years and I also sheltered apart for a time. In our own ways, we had to reassess what we wanted our relationship to be, could we re-imagine it, and if so, how did we want to show up in our marriage and support each other through this difficult time? I think the pandemic was a time of self-reflection and helped to re-kindle and re-center some of things that were de-prioritized over the years while we tried to grow in our careers, raise a family, take up new hobbies, go to grad school and push ourselves to the max.

The story that I'm telling myself right now is that the pandemic helped save my marriage from a slow decline, and brought our family closer together. During this time, I also Zoomed monthly with about 30 extended family members to share stories, laugh and cry together. I've appreciated the space and freedom to step away from the frenzied pace of life, to spend more time cooking and gardening, to volunteer my time to causes I care about, to revel in family movie nights, take long walks in the neighborhood, deepen my yoga practice and take in the beauty of nature all around me. 

With the Delta strain on the rise and the possibility of future mandates and lockdowns on the horizon, I want to take all of these learnings with me into the next chapter.