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Last week–our first in Lockdown Part 2 (or 3? I’m losing count; thankfully the New South Wales government is just going to keep this one going so as not to have us confused by popping in and out of it in the future)–I was fortified by a steely resolve to fill our mornings with activity. I had cracked the code, I felt: get out of the house in the morning, and feel less guilty about being there in the afternoon. The cool morning air was invigorating and the boys’ moods and mine were improved by it. I silently congratulated myself and poured a celebratory cocktail, smug that I had survived two days’ worth of semi-detention.

I did something else stupid as well: decided I would post our adventures to Instagram, citing “accountability” as a reason when it was actually “validation.” I was trying to prove something to myself and others: maybe I was the mother who enjoyed these outings, these explorations, these plans and the conquering of them.

It took me less than a week to make myself sick, returning begrudgingly to my multiple-photo-posting as though it were homework that was mocking me. I thought about it when I snapped pics of the boys: this one would look good online. Ugh. I thought I wasn’t one of those people, but here I was. Being one.

We’ve all benefited from, and even enjoyed, some structure to our days, some forced fresh air and exercise punctuating the Roblox and doom-scrolling and countdowns to wine o’clock. We’ve marvelled at the beaches we’ve never seen but were always there, waiting to be discovered in our backyard. We’ve also sighed with relief upon returning home to the couch and Netflix. We’re surviving by a greater margin than last lockdown–I wouldn’t go so far as to say thriving, but definitely “surviving better”–and now that we’ll be doing home learning for (at least?) a week, there’s a part of me that’s actually looking forward to implementing what I learned from last year’s hellish experience, which can be boiled down to a couple of simple ideas: try less and give fewer fucks.

The rule-follower, the performer, the approval-seeker within me, she is always waiting for the opportunity to pop back in and take over my life. She held the reins for the first few decades and I forget that she hasn’t been so much vanquished as quietened–this wasn’t a bloody overthrow a la the Revolutionary War as much as it was a referendum leading to affiliated independence (that’s America vs Australia, if you’re nasty). When there’s an opportunity to put on a show, to get that sweet hit of dopamine via a few online likes, she shows back up with her suitcase like she’s staying awhile, and it’s not until she’s put her toothbrush in my bathroom and turning on my hair straightener that I realise she’s trying to take over.

That’s when she gets asked (told) to take a hike (luckily, there are countless beautiful ones around here), because I know what happens if she stays: I start quantifying everything, turning life into a list to be fulfilled, a series of bullet points to achieve. My children wilt under the pressure and so do I, and we cross the finish line of each day bruised and resentful and not feeling safe at all. Well-being is sacrificed on the altar of accomplishment, and no one is the better for it.

Because it turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks, or as neurobiologists would put it: you can form new connections in the brain, reconnect synapses and lay neural pathways that weren’t there before, so altering your self-awareness that your life alters along with it. Generational patterns are broken and you are no longer a slave to your past. The new me that has been emerging from the debris of the old one for the past couple of decades is more aware of her faults and failures but free to express them, to shine a light on them, because she knows that grace shows up with forgiveness and redemption to make her safe.

She laughs more–often at her own expense. She’s calmer, less angry (or sometimes just angry at different things). She’s anxious but knows ways to deal with it. She likes jazz because she’s no longer afraid of meandering without a plan (for five-minute stints, at least–but it’s a start!). She doesn’t jump to defending everything she knows without also taking time to examine it. She’s more interesting, creative, and complicated than she was ever allowed to be before.

“Sometimes you need to take a few steps back and start somewhere else,” writes Katherine May in Wintering, my tour guide for these last few weeks. We’re starting somewhere different this time, and my kids have a new tour guide: she resembles the old one but she’s different, so different. I can’t wait for them to get to know her.