Mom’s Vibe
By Krystle J. Bailey
This year has been one for the history books. One day we were living our regular lives and the next, we were trying to navigate a new, complicated, and confusing world.
2020 forced everyone to navigate new realities with one change after the next. For us moms, not only did we have to wrap our own minds around the changes, but we had to help our little ones to make sense of it all simultaneously.
Suddenly, our lives completely changed as we became full time teachers, chefs, and housekeepers while trying to maintain careers and run businesses.
Many moms took the brunt of the impact, as the Labor Department reported in September that women left the workforce at four times the rate that men did.
Of course, we have to take a moment to collectively honor those moms who have been on the front lines all year. Nurses, doctors, grocery store workers, and other essential employees who not only faced these challenges at home but turned around and went out into the world to keep us safe, healthy, and fed. You all are true heroes.
No matter how this year has impacted you, one thing remains true – we have all faced insurmountable challenges and yet, we continue to reinvent, reevaluate, and show up day after day.
We show up for each other, for our spouses, and especially for our children. We show up, no matter how broken or pieced together with Elmer’s glue we may feel.
We show up and we teach, we cook and clean (more than ever before), we referee, we work, we create, and each day, we do it all again. Most of all, we love. We’ve had to rely on love more than ever before. Love has been the one thing that has gotten us through.
I know that I’ve only begun to touch on the countless ways 2020 has impacted families in our community. Whatever your unique situation looks like, our hearts are with you.
As this year comes to an end, I want to extend a big virtual hug to each and every one of you. With that hug, I want to encourage you to find time to take a deep breath as the final days of 2020 fizzle out and we begin to look forward.
If there’s one thing we learned this year, it is that we can’t expect the future to work out as we plan. What we can do is decide to show up with gratitude for what is in front of us, lessons learned from what is behind us, and admiration for what was built within us this year.
This year, more than ever before, so many of us have found our fight. We’ve found a deep strength that we didn’t know we had. We’ve discovered that when our back is against the wall, the momma bear within us will fight another day.
Our babies didn’t miss that. They will look back at this year when they’re old enough to understand and see how we kept going in a year that they’ll one day read about in their history books. It may feel messy in the moment but my hope is that the love and connection that was experienced as the world slowed down will be what they remember.
From myself and the entire Shore Local Team, I am wishing you the most genuine “Happy Holidays” that I can put into words. May you and your family enjoy a slowed down, intimate, love-filled holiday season and abundant new year.
Take care of yourselves, fellow momma bears!
Talk to you in 2021,
Krystle
Krystle J Bailey. Multimedia journalist, Author, Poet
