It was all looking so promising. Cases declining, restaurants opening, that sweet feeling of catching up with friends again. I looked towards the upcoming holidays with a sense of purpose. We were going to make the most of it: have a party for Hudson (the poor boy had been waiting since January), celebrate Eli’s ninth birthday, get away for a bit.

And then, the second wave hit.

We were preparing to go out to dinner when we heard the news.  Restrictions were back in place as of midnight Sunday night. We were now in a ‘hotspot’ shire. ‘Don’t visit friends and family. Don’t go on holiday. Don’t go to work. Stay home.’

I didn’t have time to process it properly that night. We thoroughly enjoyed the (now scarce) opportunity to enjoy a meal with friends and savoured every moment of the delicious food and the deep conversation.

The next day was when I began to descend. Would we still be able to go on that holiday to Philllip Island we had already booked? What would we do for Hudson? We had planned for a party at the park with a few of his friends, but even that seemed out of reach now. Dave came up with the idea of a virtual Zoom party and hastily printed out the invites.

There were many conversations about whether it would be safe for us to still go away. Countless googling sessions of what the restrictions actually allowed. None of us were sick and we had booked a private holiday house. There were no recorded cases in our suburb. We decided it was worth the risk.

The reality sat heavily, though, as we packed and prepared to go away. I went from hardly checking in on the statistics to constantly refreshing my feed, feeling the anxiety spike up a notch each time. It wasn’t exactly the ideal state of mind for an adventure.

And it had an impact. Dave and I were more snappy than usual, with little provocations by the kids often tipping us over into the yelling zone. They picked up on our moods and weren’t the best versions of themselves either.

Yet it was so good to get away. The house was cosy and well equipped for an ‘iso-holiday’ – with a fireplace, billiard table, racing console and plenty of books and board-games.

We stocked up with all the food I usually walk straight past at Aldi, and savoured the treats that are synonymous with family getaways – monte carlos, a big wheel of brie, gourmet granola, coco pops, fudgy ice-cream, mint slice, blueberry kombucha, ginger beer. With Eli’s birthday so close, we allowed him to choose the menu and he relished the opportunity to design a culinary experience for us all (butter chicken, an antipasto spread, hot dogs, pizza).

The first night we ate charcoal slow-roasted lamb from the spit with freshly made Greek salad and crunchy chips, taking a socially distanced walk in the dark on the Cowes pier. I was still jittery and reactive, shepherding the boys away from the precarious edge and finding it hard to just ‘be’. They didn’t seem to be deterred, simply finding the joy in being out after dark, playing chasing games on the abandoned foreshore, watching with interest as the fishermen baited their lines.

There were moments when it all seemed too hard. When we looked at each other in exhaustion, wondering why we had bothered to come away. It’s always different parenting in another space – puzzling out bed configurations, separating children who are intent on sparking each other’s tempers, refereeing the arguments over what’s ‘fair’. Yet we knew that the memories would be worth it. The inevitable wave of exhaustion that hits as soon as you let down your guard is something that cannot be withstood, but simply leaned into.

Our pace was slow and cathartic. We visited beaches, let the kids play in the freezing water and then bundled them into a warm spa afterwards. There was takeaway coffee, an antique store adventure, bargains at Vinnies, bagels eaten in the car with the heat on high after another session of braving the waves. Reading under a pile of blankets, car racing challenges, family jenga battles, unintentional naps. Ice cream. Way too much screen time. More coffee.

We realised in hindsight that apart from the food and accommodation, everything we did was completely free – the rugged wonder of the ocean in winter being enough of a drawcard for us to return again and again from different angles. We saw it from the pier, the foreshore playground, savouring delicious pizza from Pino’s Trattoria on the final night as the sun dipped down below the twinkling blue line of the horizon. We saw it from the Nobbie’s boardwalk with the wind whipping our hair back and forth, from Ventnor’s sheltered beach with its own little river trickling past, from the Forest Caves hollowed out from the relentless waves.

Thanks to a well-timed spiritual direction session on the second night, I was able to shift my parenting perspective from being constantly triggered by a particularly screechy kid, to taking the chance to connect with them instead, which (funnily enough) all but erased the whinging. I guess at our core, we all just need to be seen.

We are home again now, feeling remarkably refreshed from our brief time away. We’re back in the reality that may be with us for some time to come. Who knows what life with COVID holds in store in the long-term, but I guess the only real thing we have power over is our perspective.

So, as we ride this ‘second wave’, I choose to see the good, to not panic unnecessarily, to relish the increased moments for connection with family and to step away from the refresh button. Life is rarely the exact version we picture, and even when it is less than ideal, there are always moments to celebrate.

What is helping you right now? Let me know! I’m reading The Obstacle is The Way at the moment, which is a modern take on the philosophy of Stoicism, and it is definitely helping my outlook.