We did a thing today. We went back-to-school shopping. School shopping has always been one of my favorite times of the year. But everything felt different this year. I didn’t have the same excitement this summer.

I put it off for a long time because I didn’t know if kids would be attending school in person or online. Honestly, I still don’t know. With just over a week before the first day of school, it could all change.

It was easier to put off school shopping than deal with the disappointment of doing it and then being told that my oldest won’t get to be in the building with their friends.

It was easier putting it off than dealing with my kindergartener’s disappointment of not getting to experience the excitement of starting “real school.”

I wanted to protect them from that. I wanted to protect myself from that.

But living with the what-ifs isn’t living. It’s allowing fear to hold us back. It’s allowing the unknown to steal the joy of the moment.

In the last six months, our world has been turned upside down. If you asked me six months ago what I thought of my kids starting school in August, I would have given you a completely different answer. I could never have fathomed what would have unfolded over the last six months. And the events of the next six months are entirely unknown.

That’s the reality.

But right now, we’re going to enjoy new school supplies. We’re going to enjoy this moment of “normal” in the midst of the chaos. We’re going to take this as a win.