Perhaps you’ve seen the stories of Shakespeare and Bach writing great works during the plague. You see the stay at home order as a chance to accomplish great things, or at least catch up on home projects and that giant pile of books you keep meaning to read.

Maybe you are accomplishing big projects, and steaming through that reading – good for you! Or maybe you’re tired, short-tempered, and have a hard time maintaining motivation. Maybe you have vast attention for the things you find very meaningful, and no attention for anything else. Perhaps your memory seems to have left the building.

Me? I’ve taken weeks trying to read a not-very-long book about brain development – and hey, it’s proving useful in all this.

It turns out that what we’re experiencing is perfectly normal. Our brains are stressed and concentrating on survival – keeping us and our kin safe, getting us through another hour, another day. Trying to find a new balance amidst new realities and new routines is exhausting and it doesn’t help that you may have shortened and interrupted sleep!

And all of this is doubly true for children and teenagers, whose brains are still forming.

Let us all be gentle with ourselves. Let’s do what we need to do to get through obligations. No expectation of miracles. Taking time for fun and passions when we can. Each of us is having our own experience of this pandemic, and we’re all doing the best we can.

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