The cold hard truth is that I feel guilty.

Guilty to be in the safety and comfort of my brand new home while others are spending the last of their energies keeping their fellow man alive.

I’m not talking just about doctors and nurses, who are undeniably essential pandemic or not. Those people hold a personal special place in my heart.

Those are the people who helped me hold my girls in my arms.

There are thousands of other staff members that make hospitals run who are in contact with patients.

Cafeteria workers, housekeeping, janitors, security guards, front desk workers, management, chaplains, techs, students, and so many more, college degree or not.

The rare times I leave my house for food or going to the post office I see all the other institutions deemed essential. Postal workers are a vast encompassing group that keeps the world connected.

Agriculture is huge in our area. Our soil is rich with the fruits of back breaking labor. If you haven’t worked in the fields yourself, you probably know someone who has.

The coolers around town are still open to receive that produce and ship it out across the world. The cooler my stepdad works at has shipped strawberries locally and all the way to parts of Asia.

The fieldworkers are still picking. Coolers are still receiving. Trucks are still delivering. Grocery stores, food banks, and some restaurants are still open; being the last chain in command to feed its people.

I’ve realized the value of construction workers building homes right across the street from us. Since we moved in, at least ten other families have staked their claim to a home of their own.

Every job is important whether a degree or even a high school diploma is needed.

All of us make the world turn.

Parents who are newly at home or who have been holding down the fort since their family’s inception are the backbone of the human race.

We are a social species, no matter how introverted I am most of the time. The ability to be social starts with the family first, in how we are raised.

The problem is accepting that staying home is probably the most important thing I can do not just because of the pandemic, but for my family’s future.

When my daughter wants to constantly hang on me and talk my ear off, I remind myself that there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

Whatever shenanigans she gets into is her way of learning and expressing what she sees through engaging with me, her momma.

Raising her is my job. She is my focus and my back breaking labor, literally and figuratively.

She is my world. And I’m okay with staying at home for however long she needs me.

The fantastic part is that I don’t need anyone’s approval for my life anymore.

I’ve worked full-time jobs, part-time jobs, two to three jobs at once while going to school, and worked while going to school and raising my daughter. The best I’ve ever had and the most rewarding is raising my girl.

I remind myself that she is my full time job, and that’s ok.

The guilt of staying home and not working the front lines is slowly dissipating as the days turn into weeks.

And the looming realization that my twin’s birthday is just a few weeks away is unreal.

Its already been a year. Just as I felt trapped and fearful then, the same holds true again.

But my girls give me hope~