We have flattened a curve our own in my home, people and it is quite amazing.

When this quarantine started, we were — for lack of better words, a messy pile of wtfs. Life had been flipped upside-down and we were acting out (even if we didn’t know it). The kids were fighting non-stop and I was a referee losing her cool.

We felt trapped and were so sick each of each other. We missed sports and friends and human interaction with people who didn’t share our DNA. We spent a fortune on take-out and ice cream and ate our feelings because that was really the only thing that we could control/change/look forward to in our lives.

But then, things changed. Not overnight. Not intentionally. They just slowly improved as we proved we are resilient. We can adapt. We want to be happy and calm and not fighting and something deep in our psyches and souls helps us to seek peace over chaos. My kids (without help from me) learned how to cope with this new normal. They decided working out and getting exercise was better than binge-watching. They choose to give homeschooling 100% because it is the right thing to do. They opted to treat each other with love above all else. And here we are on day number I-don’t-know (because it doesn’t really matter)— making the best of this.

We aren’t rushing. We aren’t frazzled and we aren’t focusing on what we miss or what we hate about quarantine. We are adjusting and adapting and not only looking for the positive but creating it with our own minds and bodies because if we don’t, we will be miserable.

Yes, there are still fights. Yes, at times we still feel stuck, and yes, we can’t help but wonder about the future, but these moments are fleeting; we remind ourselves to stay in the here and now. We move a muscle and change a thought and we acknowledge that one day, we will look back at this quarantine and miss the very things that we used to complain about.

We will miss certain aspects of the working/schooling from home, and the later-than-usual sleep-ins and the countless walks-around-the-neighborhood, the curbside pick-ups and drive-by birthday parties and even the damn Zoom meetings.

We will miss this time when all we had was each other. We will be back to rushing out the door and searching for soccer jerseys and tracking down forgotten-lunch boxes; there will be morning tears because I-have-nothing-to-wear and we will look back and laugh and say, “remember how great the quiet life was” because that is how life works. It is very hard to appreciate the hidden blessings of life as they occur, but life is short and sweet and worry sucks.

Find your hidden blessings today. Do something today that you couldn’t do in your so-called normal life. Create a memory and experience it with your every sense in the present moment. Look for the good in this and appreciate it for the blessing that it is because one day it will be just a memory. And tightly hold on to the certainty that the day will come when you do, indeed, miss the quarantined life.

Don’t let your life be more beautiful in hindsight than it is in the present moment.