Interverts in Lockdown

 I need somewhere to rant, and since I am still in the midst of my Facebook boycott, I guess I'll go here. I promise to keep the politics out of it, since that is an entirely different rant.

I keep reading about how hard the quarantines have been for extroverts or how introverts were made for this or whatever. It isn't the case for all of us, however. I was in lockdown with my family in the spring. We are now in mostly self-isolation as the numbers rise exponentially. My children are both in online only school. They are nine and thirteen. The nine-year old is a social child. She has struggled. Luckily, my sister's family is also mostly in isolation, so we let my daughter and her daughter play, outside. This has gotten more complicated as it has gotten colder, and they now play mostly in the garage because my mother, who is not in the best of health, also lives with my sister. Anyway, the point is that the children are home, all the time more or less.

The nine-year-old lacks confidence when it comes to math. It isn't that she doesn't know how to do it, she just doesn't THINK she knows how to do it. So, I have to sit with her whenever she is doing math. The thirteen-year-old is, well, he's thirteen. He'd rather sleep than do anything else. He has never really liked school. That means that in order to get him to do ANY school I have to sit in his room, the exception being Digital Literacy, I think he's a week ahead in that class. This means that most of my day involves teaching my children. I am not a teacher. I have no training in being a teacher. Yes, I can handle most 4th grade and 8th grade subjects, but it tries my patients to no end. Especially when I have to spend a half hour or more just convincing the thirteen-year-old to do the assignments before we even start.

I can't even say what I would give for a day all to myself. I had gotten used to at least a few hours a day completely to myself since they have both been in school now full time for a few years. I had even gone back to school myself and was enjoying intellectual and adult conversations, conversations where I was considered intelligent and not argued with just to argue but on some actually debatable issue (13-year-olds are so much fun. I have to use Google to prove I know what I'm talking about on a regular basis).

I'm not the only one with a similar struggle. My younger brother, who is the only person I know who is a bigger introvert than me has it even worse. His girlfriend had just moved in with him in the spring when the lockdown happened. So, that was an adjustment unto itself. Then there is the fact that she has two young boys from a previous marriage. My brother has never had children. Not only was he adjusting to having a girlfriend move in, he was adjusting to having two children move in but then he was working from home, the children were home, and he couldn't really go anywhere just to recharge. I think he mostly locks himself in his basement office, but I can't imagine it being easy.

In fact, I almost called him on Saturday and said, "Let's go somewhere outdoors and not talk to each other." See, I have the added problems of being female and have had a history of seizures (though it has been years, I'm not supposed to hike or anything of that sort alone, you know, in case). In the end it was much too cold to do anything on Saturday. When I told him about it on Sunday he laughed at the "and not talk to each other" part, but I know he knew what I meant.

The point is that one should not make assumptions about others experiences. This lockdown has not been a walk in the park for all the introverts. When reaching out to make sure friends or relatives are handling the pandemic mentally, don't forget the introverts.