I’ve been too busy to write. I’ve been too tired to write. I’ve been too busy and too tired to do very much more than make lists of things that I want to do, that I should be doing, but instead setting them aside for the pressing things, like saving our university.

We are all weary and wary. We work and work and work and work. We hurry up and wait. I am not alone in this, but being apart from my colleagues, from everyone and anyone that I am not directly related to by blood or by chosen bond, makes it hard to remember that we are all in the same storm, as new saying goes.

Is anyone enjoying this, any part of this? I even miss my commute, driving into a sunrise and watching the seasons slowly change. I miss listening to the small handful of podcasts I enjoy, like missing my friends. My kids are at an age where they don’t want to hang out as much (if at all) with mom and dad, and that’s fine, and we don’t force matters because our therapist said how well our kids are doing with all this, and really, what more in these times could we want?

Even my son misses seeing and hanging out with his friends in person and not just over video games.

Practice gratitude, practice yoga, practice patience, practice, practice, practice. But what if the only space where I can practice is the same space where I do everything else and I just don’t want to be in here anymore?

My daughter also has turned her bedroom into her all-purpose room – it’s where she studies, reads, does attends (virtual) school, practices her clarinet, writes, talks with her friends…and she decided that she could no longer stare at her pink bookshelf anymore. She wanted a new one, right now, without delay. A compromise: let’s try to paint it. That was an epic failure, and now we will have to buy a new shelf anyway. “I tried,” I lamented to my husband.

“Yeah,” he responded. “Trying is the worst.”

I have a Star Wars t-shirt that says: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” On the back, it looks like Yoda is strapped to my back, the way Luke carried the diminutive Jedi Master while he trained on Dagoba. Right now, it feels like all there is is trying, and my husband is right that trying is the worst. Do feels like an impossibility, while do not is not a choice I can make right now, so I just have to keep trying, even if Yoda would be disappointed in me.

Trying is the worst. But trying is all we have right now.