Ping Pong, anyone?

By Jeanne Albanese

I feel like a ping pong ball these days.

Not the pre-COVID-19 kind, pinging and dinging from commitment to errand to chore to work to commitment to errand to chore to work and back again.

I’m an emotional ping pong ball. (And fear the trajectory of this piece may be similar so bear with me.)

On the daily, I see things that both inspire and sicken me.

Things that enlighten and sadden me.

I see news that I fashion a reaction to, and then that news changes and my emtions or opinions become irrelevant.

It’s sunny, I’m up and happy. It’s rainy and I struggle through the day with a smile, or sometimes without, waiting until it’s a socially acceptable time to go to bed (or not), sleeve of Thin Mints ever at the ready.

I listen to Governor Cuomo talk daily about how we all have to be better, how we will be better and I so want to believe him that that’s how this will all turn out. It will, but it also won’t.

Between this morning and last night, here’s a sampling of some pings and pongs.

Stupid people in NYC are still playing basketball and getting too close to each other, as in this picture below that ran in the NY Post, people gawking at the Navy ship Comfort.

I want to yell at all of these people to go the F home. (Ping.) WTF.

Then there’s news of babies being born with no one there to watch. A dear friend just lost her father who had been ill, and while I don’t know the details, I’m guessing she could not be there with him in the end. (Pong.)

And then I saw this article below first thing this morning, these parents making the ultimate and incredibly painful sacrifice not to visit their baby boy (born very prematurely)in the NICU at Crouse, for fear of infecting the other babies or heath care workers. Can you for a minute put yourself in their shoes? (Ping). Working around health privacy laws, the crafty staff came up with a way for the parents to see him on a live stream and for him to be able to hear them. (Ingenuity abounds during these difficult times.) (Ping.)

Oh, and did you catch the one about the ultimate selfish act, where a man hid his COVID-19 symptoms so he could visit his newborn in the hospital? (Pong, Pong, Pong.)

Then I see this on my feed, disgusting pigs leaving their trash on the ground at a grocery store. This is offensive on so many levels, not the least of which is the risk our grocery store staff puts themselves through every day so we can feed our families. (Ping.)

And finally, then I see this, two sweet neighbosr distributing luminaries through their neighborhood — socially distancing and using wipes to open everyone’s mailbox — for tonight’s 7 p.m. tribute to health care workers. (Pong.)

And this was all before 8 a.m.! It can be exhausting if we let it.

So if you’re at all like me these days, you just don’t know how to feel, or you accept that how you feel can change by the minute.

I didn’t write anything yesterday because I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t know how I felt about a couple of things.

Yesterday, news came about spring break being canceled. There are many sides to this decision and just as many reactions. In my own house, one kid didn’t care, one kid thought it was stupid and one kid cried. How did I feel about it? I wasn’t sure. On the one hand, I think our teachers have already been through a lot, and every one I know also has a bunch of kids of their own at home. On the other hand, as my one kid put it, it’s not like we had any plans, and in my house at least, I think a bit of structure, organization and things to do help. One of my favorite quotes is “Action is the antidote to despair.” So if my kids are laying around all day, will their mental health decline even more than it probably already has?

And then on yet another hand, I know many kids struggle with distance learning, many kids don’t have technology or stable homes and in those homes, the stakes are so much higher and so much different. And I am glad those kids will continue to get fed. But parents in general are stressed out and in need of a break from cajoling kids to do their work. I get that everyone is figuring this out as we go, that there’s no precedent and I can accept that. But this is a loaded topic, and I decided it’s okay to have mixed emotions about it.

Then I saw news yesterday about more and more schools dropping the SAT requirement for admissions. I happen to have a junior and this happens to be the time when you start taking tests and doing visits, all of which we had planned and all of which got canceled. He took the test once (after thinking it was canceled most of the day before) but so far has mostly resisted the push to do daily prep work. I also found out his review class that had been postpones, is now canceled. So then that news breaks, and who knows if the June SAT, for which he is registered, will even happen. In the normal course of parenting a teen, it goes something like this: Tell your teen what you think they should do and they ignore it until such time that they arrive at the same conclusion on their own. Frustrating, yes, but the normal order of things, and very rewarding to watch them arrive at said conclusions on their own.

So, what do I tell him now? After weeks of pestering him to spend just 15 minutes on it, I said yesterday, ‘Well I just don’t know what to tell you to do.’ As a parent you at least want to pretend you can steer the ship, even if no one is listening, but now it’s so far off course, and no one knows when it will be righted. But I finished that with a statement that said, try not to worry (I’m sure he won’t) you’re going to get into college. (So ping, then pong.)

After seeing the various bits of happy and disgusting news this morning, I came downstairs to some April Fool’s Day jokes around my house. I quickly set up a few of my own before everyone woke up (PING!!) and then watched in glee as unsuspecting children fell victim and then rushed to set up pranks of their own. (PING! PING! PING!)

I’ll close with that quarantine guilt I mentioned before, and that probably most of us feel. Not doing enough school work, not bonding enough — seeing people (allegedly) crushing those things on social media. I flipped through channels looking for the County Executive’s talk yesterday and caught Dr. Phil talking about making memories now. Even Cuomo talks about the deep conversations he’s having with his daughters. (I have teenage boys, the deepest it gets is, ‘How do you want your eggs?’)

Here, it comes in those little pings. The morning pranks. Shooting hoops in the driveway for a few minutes yesterday. Wathing my three kids play a board game togehter. Watching a funny Netflix series with the boys we all actually like. Getting off my ass for a great run in the sun this morning with my dog.

I’m storing up those little Pings when I get them, so I can better weather the Pongs.