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Dirt recently had a newsletter about digital rest points. It was about an Instagram account, though the concept would work well on any slow-moving site. Maybe not Twitter, but Facebook or Instagram. And the person posted the “breaks” at Stories, though it would probably work better as a post. I digress.

The idea is that the posts would show up in your feed, tucked around all the other updates, and they would be a visual reminder that you’re scrolling. And may want to ask yourself if you’re still getting something good out of that scrolling, and maybe take a break if you’re not. It’s just a pretty scene, reminding the person to pause.

It feels like programmers should have built these accounts as a default account one must follow in order to be on the site. Except it would defeat the purpose of getting you to mindlessly spend time on the platform. But I love this idea: digital rest points that remind you to take a breath. Look around.

The Wolvog went driving with Josh while ChickieNob and I went on an indoor walk in Helsinki. Afterward, he texted me a photo of the Wolvog filling my car with gasoline as proof that he had taken care of a task I asked him to do before he went out. Nothing more than shorthand for “check this off the to-do list.”

But that photo. The Wolvog’s hair tucked under a baseball cap; wild curls peeking out from a lack of haircut. Jeans and old t-shirt, half-smiling at the camera, proud of his self-sufficiency. So much taller than the roof of the car.

When I started this blog, the twins were about to turn two. We were transitioning from bottles.

Now they are teens, driving cars and having opinions and running errands. We don’t have kids anymore. We have young adults.

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I asked the Wolvog if I could write a post about the image. “Sure. But why?” It was bittersweet, I told him, and he asked me why again.

Because until you pay attention to someone aging, you don’t realize the weight of aging. When you’re aging yourself as a child or teen, you can’t see it. But when you hit adulthood and begin noticing it in others, aging stands out and you start seeing it everywhere: in the older generation, in the younger generation, in yourself. I am thrilled that the Wolvog is growing; I love the teen years. But it is bittersweet to see time passing.

One of my favourite newsletters—Strong Sense of Place—had a line that I loved last week. She wrote the day after (hence the “yesterday” in the quote you’ll read soon) meeting up with a friend outside after a long pandemic stay-at-home. They were careful; keeping distant and masked, but created a space in which to enjoy each other and have a pastry to boot.

She writes, “For a bit, the world felt more normal and happy and sweet than it has in a while … A year from now, I won’t remember today. But I will definitely fondly remember yesterday.”

I loved this because I don’t think I’ll remember the hard days. I mean, yes, I will remember that they existed, but I won’t feel them as keenly as I will the little victories that broke up the monotony at home. Seeing my sister and brother outside after a year without them. The day we took a long walk and got gelatis to go. Seeing my parents and uncle outside every other week to drop off groceries. A picnic with my in-laws halfway between our two houses at an Interstate rest stop. Reading by the river on the eastern shore.

We’re not there yet; we’ve made the personal decision to not change anything—even post-vaccine—until community transmission goes down. But I can keep going whenever I pause and think about how tiny, happy moments dot the landscape like wildflowers in a field.

My stomach dropped when I saw the news alert on Friday about Prince Philip. I had woken up the ChickieNob a few minutes earlier and had to double back to her room to give her the news. It was a hard morning made a little easier by a cousin who texted her before school to let her know that she was sad for the Queen, too.

Years ago, we came up with a plan—our own Tay Bridge—for what happens in the event of a royal death. The ChickieNob worked out which royals meant the most to her; the ones she would want to leave school for and process at home and the ones where she would feel sad but could ultimately keep moving through her day. Prince Philip was near the top of the list, just under the Queen.

He’s a complicated person, the Queen’s “strength and stay” and everyone else’s untranslatable. But he was the first royal who wrote back the ChickieNob, which bumped up his placement in her heart. She wrote him before Scotland because our trip coincided with Holyrood Week, and he wrote back after she returned. At that point, he had retired from public life, and she didn’t think there was a chance that he would answer. But there was the return letter in our mailbox, stamped from the palace. He hoped she had been able to partake in the Holyrood Week festivities.

With a letter, he created a tiny thread in history. And there is nothing that the ChickieNob loves more than history and its complicated, interesting humans.

I have run out of words. At the beginning of the pandemic, there were tons of words. Every conversation was about COVID-19. Even in the middle of the pandemic, there were many words. We were discussing the people who were behaving as if we weren’t in a pandemic and the variants and the vaccine rollout. We were talking about in-person school vs. remote learning.

But I’ve run out of words. I feel like I’ve hit a word wall.

More than any other time in the pandemic, I feel depleted, like I’m a battery being charged with the wrong cord. It’s getting the job done, but it’s not getting the job done well. And the device is getting messed up in the process.

Introverts need alone time to recharge, and I haven’t gotten much of it this past year. I can be alone in our room, but I still know other people are in the house. And the truth is, I don’t want them to go out. So I am continuing to recharge using the figurative wrong cord. And it leaves me tired and without words.