It's been a while

It is hard to believe it has been months since my last post. While quarantine seemed to drag on, I never actually felt like time was passing. It just seemed like a pause. Now, I am sitting in my college dorm, four and a half hours from my family, and even though I was with them nearly all-day everyday for most of 2020, and even though I love college now, I feel like my time with them wasn't long enough.

I think I waited to post because I was hoping that the pandemic would end in a couple weeks, and I could reflect on it in the past-tense. However, even as I move to college and gain as much normalcy as is safe right now, Robb's experience continues much the same to the start of quarantine. His classes are still online. Outings are still almost exclusively limited to car-rides. Leaving the house always feels like a risk. Like everyone, he gets worried and frustrated and bored and sick of this "new normal."

I always knew leaving for college would be difficult and that questions about Robb's future would remain at the forefront of my mind, but I never thought those concerns would be coupled with anxiety about his health and safety in the present along with that of my whole family. Not only is Robb's future up in the air, none of us are sure what the future will look like, and it's frustrating to be living in a world where we have to find comfort in convoluted messages about vaccines.

Even so, I feel so fortunate to be able to say that there have been small silver linings as Robb adjusts to life during covid. He gets to listen to as much "Party in the USA" as he wants. We started walking every day, and Robb seemed to like it so much he would start putting on his shoes and come get us to go. Also, I got to spend a lot of time with him before going off to college which I will always feel grateful to have had.

A couple weeks before I left, I took a picture of Robb sitting in a chair and smiling at me which is now right in front of my dorm room desk. It makes me smile. I started this blog to share Robb's light and make others smile with me, but now I think I am most grateful for it because of the of collection of memories with Robb that I can look back on and smile. Or even when I can't smile, I can remember that the difficult times were always outnumbered by the good, and every single post is rooted in my love and admiration for Robb.

Even as one chapter ends, I know we have more adventures ahead, and I cannot wait to capture everything that comes our way. Thank you for reading and giving me a reason to record Robb's life--he truly is an amazing brother.

The Last First Practice

Last weekend was my last first Special Olympics swim practice of the season with Robb, and I still can't believe it is my last year. I started swimming with Robb six years ago, and it has remained a constant for me throughout middle and high school. No matter what is going on, I can count on Robb making me laugh by stopping in the middle of a lap to sign swing, swim, ahhh or pretending to touch the ground with his feet (even as I yell "feet up") just to get a rise out of me. It was in SO that I really felt like Robb and I could just be “normal” siblings, laughing and messing with each other lap after lap. It’s little things like that that I know will be the hardest for me to be away from in college, and so for now I am trying to make the most of my last season with Robb and enjoying every second!