The Virus Showed Us What True Rest Could Look Like
Why haven’t we been doing this all along?
My husband, Josh, is a politics reporter. On January 2, he flew to Atlanta to cover the Senate elections, then went straight on to Washington, D.C., where he stayed through the inauguration. I was alone with the kids for three weeks. We were fine! I treated us to a meal delivery service and was amazed at how much space I had in my brain when I didn’t have to think about what to make for dinner. But what’s more interesting is how we coped after he returned home.
Even though Josh had been the only guest in his Washington hotel, this trip was the first time our family’s pandemic bubble had been pierced, and we wanted to be extremely cautious. So, when he returned home, he quarantined in the guest room for five days. I became his meal delivery service and brought food to his door three times a day. I tried to make it nice — a hot thermos of boiled water and tea bags every morning, a bar of dark chocolate and a fresh piece of fruit every evening — but still, at first, the confinement grated on him.
Within 24 hours, though, that began to change. Josh started enjoying himself. After working 12-to-18-hour days for the better part of a month, he told me, quarantining at home felt luxurious. He finally got to experience what it’s like to have…
