On Monday, Gabe tested positive for COVID via rapid test. He had cold symptoms, but we’d been planning on taking tests anyway following holiday travels.

This wasn’t as alarming as it once would have been - notably not very alarming at all. We are deep into this experience, vaccinated and at a point where being infected - particularly by the rampant omicron variant - seems an inevitability. We are, for the most part, in a different place. It’s smart to assess risk in a logical way, treating legitimate danger with respect while not letting unfounded fears rule your life, and we have, as a society (again, for the most part) learned better how to assess this one. That’s why I didn’t panic.

We informed the friends and family we’d seen. We called the school, and decided to keep his sisters home, too. We wanted to give it a few days, figuring there was a decent chance another member of our family - if not all of us - would test positive and, if so, could easily, before we even knew it, pass it on to others.

That’s how we found ourselves this first full January week of 2022 in a very March 2020 situation. Home, working from various tabletops, interrupting one another as though it was an imperative. Nora got into the bubble tea set she’d received for Christmas and crafted variations for us all, “cleaning up” after herself in a manner I would classify as “making it worse,” but, staring down the sink full of dishes and boba-strewn counter, I, instead, suggested (trying to be gentle, because after all she’d made me this delicious chai) she could “give it a little more effort.”

Aidy eagerly took to her Chromebook to check out each day’s assignments and a few planned Zooms - unsurprisingly quite a few children and many staff were out this week - anxious to hear who’d won the math challenge or been deemed that week’s “Positive Panther” (the panther, our school’s mascot). She got dressed in a new outfit she’d gotten for Christmas, which included leggings, a plaid button down shirt, fuzzy white vest and two barrettes adorned with the words “vibes” and “love.” Also, glitter eyeshadow. She buckled down and told me she was doing her assignments then slid her screen in front of my face, displacing my own laptop, to show me a slow motion video of a Pomeranian running through a field.

And Gabe, in what seems the most middle-child of middle-child injustices soldiered on with a completely isolated case of the coronavirus. We didn’t know where he got it or why we weren’t getting it - our subsequent tests negative, his positive - especially since we haven’t been trying at all to distance ourselves, figuring it simply wasn’t worth it. I wondered and surmised, playing detective until I realized I didn’t have the tool set to figure this one out.

It’s just so strange, amusing almost. To try and avoid something for so long, then witness it finally manifest in a mildly ill 10-year-old boy. Normal cold symptoms. Obviously our situation is a fortunate one, and while it’s been, relatively, “no big deal” for us (and also, I realize, is only our experience so far) that’s certainly not true for everyone and certainly not true for the world as a whole, perhaps one of the biggest concepts we’ve discussed and discussed and (to my children’s protestations: “MOMMY OK!” ) discussed yet again throughout these 22 months of unending life lessons.

Funny, to watch my children normalize this previously foreign culprit, calling Gabe “COVID boy,” (which is really mean, and I told them to stop, but also a very on-brand sibling reaction and secretly I laughed at it) and informing me when and where he had coughed on or near them, but then quickly forgetting their concern and diving back into play or fighting (of which there has been plenty). It’s more of those contrasting feelings we’ve all had to try and rationalize, the high-octane displaced by the humbling acceptance, over and over. “We can’t live like this,” followed by, “We just have to live with this.”

Because we were thrown back into this early pandemic-type state, ignoring all our commitments this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the comfort that comes from succumbing; the involuntary type of comfort we were all forced to embrace, and which we thought and talked and wrote about, at the beginning. No more piano or Taekwondo or wearing real clothes. A complete lack of the dreaded morning routine, which I have tried and failed to perfect, or at least make less terrible, for many, many years.

This week’s compulsory comfort - not exactly stuck at home, but taking advantage of our status by staying put for the most part - has been like that first round, but with the knowledge that we will likely emerge without much incident (and again, with the complete understanding that this is the way our and not everyone’s journey plays out).

This homebound week was less marked by giddy anxiety than the first. I didn’t rush to pen a list of “to dos” that included writing a novel, as so many of us did in the first days - honestly hours - of that sudden, mid-March shutdown (what were we thinking?)

If anything, I think our society as a whole has gotten quite good at welcoming the “enough”-ness that each unpredictable day brings, preaching to one another that if a day on the couch watching Netflix is what you needed, then that is what you needed.

And yet! More contradictory thinking (with my apologies): I have also been thinking about how this state of “enough,” isn’t, you know, enough.

This January, J and I both enrolled in Connecticut’s “Winter Warrior” challenge, in which you try to walk or run at least one mile each day, outside, for the entire month. So, ok, fine, one instance of a goal-setting type “to do,” but I’ve taken it easy so far, kicking it off New Year’s Day taking a delightful stroll with friends and taking a daily, at-least-one-mile dog walk since then.

Tuesday night I didn’t head out until 6 or so in the evening, which might as well be midnight during these true months of Connecticut winter. As I ambled along, the GPS tracker on my phone noting my slow stride but increasing distance, I heard a neighbor cough as he entered his house with his dog, and wondered if this was the hour when all the infected or close-contact family members came out to get their exercise, under cover of dark.

It was, actually, the evening before my 44th birthday (WHAT) and as I shuddered in the frigid air and became annoyed by Maisie’s obsessive insistence that we stop every three feet to inspect some apparently irresistible scent, I decided to partake in an illuminating activity - one we should all indulge in regularly - and summoned the most indelible moments of these 44 years: landing on the hard seat of a just-right carousel horse on the National Mall in D.C., my father watching from the grass.; the hot sun as I took in the ruins of Uxmal, the ancient Maya city I visited on my trip to the Yucatan peninsula a few years ago; the doctor yelling excitedly for me to “reach down and grab your baby!” (a command he issued without warning, mind you) so I did, and introduced myself to our wildly-screaming third child; side-stepping and nearly tripping numerous probably-angry NYC Marathon runners as I made my way to my extended family cheering section on the sidelines; the aimless chatter as our family of five drove the winding roads to a weekend trip to the Berkshires; the unmistakable sound of near-vehicular-ruination as I taught my friends to drive stick shift through the roads of Northern Virginia, accompanied by our teenage devil-may-care hysterical laughter. Just a few of many.

These moments not defined by the confines of comfort or safety we’ve all grown to not only accept, but live by. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, especially considering the circumstances.

But taking on this just-taxing-enough winter challenge, my airways inflamed by the chill and possibly a mild case of the coronavirus - who knows?! - I considered these moments compared to their subdued counterparts: the weight of multiple blankets; getting into the bed for the night before 9 pm…such sweet relief.

Relief and security and enough. Charging boldly towards the next excellent thing.

Room for both and ready for either. A mile-long walk, whatever the pace, to welcome this new year.