Yes, it’s the end of the school year, and I’ve slidden into the ritual sense of nostalgia and questioning where has the time gone, and how are they growing so fast, and didn’t they look young.

And yet it’s feeling rather anticlimactic, in all honesty. Normally at this time of year, I’m bracing myself for the holidays, both looking forward to finally being able to stop running around like a cat chasing its tail, and at the same time tensing for the impending adjustment to all being home together.

Not so this year. Yes, we’ve aimed for some structure, but it’s been far more relaxed than normal school days, simply by not having to get everyone out of the door for a set time. We’ve not committed to many extra-curricular zooms, (not a bad thing, considering our frequent inability to be on time, if at all, for the ones we were committed to!) so there won’t be a great deal stopping there either.

On the plus side, there won’t be the usual first week tensions of everyone fighting for their place in the hierarchy. We’ve been home together for 4 months now, and we all know that Micah is the boss.

It does feel a bit like we’ve been robbed of something though. I tearfully watched the video Theo’s nursery teacher sent, with clips of their early nursery days, and the realisation that by the end of September he’ll be in full time school hit again. He looked so little in September, and somehow, over these last months where we’ve been busy slowing down and surviving, he’s grown and changed and getting ready to fly.

Toby particularly feels genuinely sad and disappointed at the end of year 5. He loved having a fun male teacher this year, hanging out with all his mates, and it all evaporated away somewhere back in March. He was especially down in the dumps at the lack of end of year class party, where they take in a paper plate of the same food that would normally be in their lunch box, and watch back to back movies. Because those are the rituals, and things don’t feel the same without them.

And then there’s the thought of filling the coming weeks. How to make it interesting when nothing much will change? Without the school day structure, will the teens morph into actually becoming a physical extension of their beds? Getting them out in the fresh air has been tricky enough with school work to do, what now?!

We’re going to sit down and have a look at the holidays, come up with some ideas, but it isn’t filling me with anticipation. I know places are open and bookable, but the thought of a committed time slot when you’re wrestling eight people in and out of the car and around an attraction is stress inducing at the best of times. And then there’s the uncertainties of how practical it will be to negotiate places with one way systems and strict toilet planning, especially if visiting new places with a lot of offspring. I admire the people who are weighing up the impact of the virus and going away anyway, I just don’t think my heart rate is ready for those kinds of anxiety levels.

I know a lot of people, like me, are struggling more with the lifting of restrictions than the actual complete lockdown period. The grey areas are harder to negotiate. Before you meet up with other people you have to get the measure of where they’re at with the virus, and respect and love one another whilst still wanting to make connection. There’s the planning for outdoor meet-ups but the great British weather to negotiate. The back up plans for if places are very busy, the toilet considerations if you pick somewhere more rural. There’s the different rules in different countries to keep tabs on. The hints of normality but headlines blaring that there’s a lot that just isn’t normal. And it can all feel quite exhausting.

And honestly, the homely introverted part of me can be sorely tempted to just stay at home reading and writing and crocheting (because in my head that’s how I would spend my days…) and hope that one day I’ll wake up and just be able to cough in public without wanting the ground to swallow me up.

Then tonight a sad Micah was calling for his Meggy when I took him up to bed, and she appeared in the room, gave him a cuddle, brushed his teeth and read him a story. And it reminded me that 2020 might not be the year of holidays and hugs and end of nursery parties, but there are opportunities in every day for moments that matter. Whether they’re in my home or on a phone or making the effort to effort to meet someone or get out of the house even when it feels more complicated, I get the chance every day to choose to love. To choose to be thankful. To choose to learn. To choose to listen.

I keep hearing people say ‘let’s just write off 2020’. I get where that comes from, but I think life’s too unpredictable to just write off the bits that don’t go my way. I don’t know what ups and downs the summer will bring. My calendar predicts September will be spent driving back and forth between 3 different schools in complex transition plans for six different children. So I don’t want to just get through the six weeks, just surviving.

And more than just the unknown changes ahead, as Rend Collective sing, ‘my every breath is grace’. Every day I am given is a gift, not earned or a right, but an opportunity to love my neighbour and worship my Maker. The Psalmist said:

‘So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom…
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.’ – Psalm 90:12,14

The start of the summer holidays might not feel anything special this year, but they are full of possibility to be numbered, to be counted instead of written off, to make a difference. Even if it’s just in the mundane, in the gentle cuddles of a big sister with her cranky brother, in agreeing to sit and play a game with a child, in choosing to make eye contact and smile at a shop assistant, in stopping to send someone a text, there are opportunities every day to make 2020 count.