The Silver Lining

My mom always used to tell me, “You can always find a silver lining if you just look hard enough.” Well, I’m looking, mom, and you’re right – even if it’s incredibly hard to see a silver lining just now.

- MELINDA MURPHY

When I pitched a story to my editor about families being together 24/7, I thought I’d write a funny piece about how hard all this togetherness can be. Oh, and trust me, there is some of that. Our first day of e-learning was not pretty. The school’s server went down. And mommy? Mommy went down, too. A leak in our roof drowned my computer so I had no backup or patience. Day Two was infinitely better. Still, my takeaway from home-schooling? Teachers deserve to make a million dollars a year.

As it turns out, there is more heart than humour in this situation.

The ugly bit

There is a very real adjustment to all being together. My friend Katrina Bens quipped, “If this is foreshadowing retirement, then I’m glad the stock market crashed so we can’t retire for at least another ten years.” She laughed when she said it, but I can tell there’s a grain of truth. Being together all the time can be hard.

Anthia Chng in my office is a newlywed, which, quite frankly, can be hard enough. Adjusting to marriage is fabulous, but also tricky. Sprinkle in both spouses working from home and things can get tough. Anthia says, “My husband’s ‘break time’ revolves around watching ridiculous TikTok videos on max volume – and then there are the video work calls he has in the living room, which is our main (and only) working area where we have both our computers set up. It’s like I’m playing hide-and-seek with his laptop camera every morning. Send help!”

Can’t you just feel her pain? We’ve all been there these past weeks, with a little too much togetherness and nowhere to hide.