Yesterday was a down day. We had plans but felt as though we needed to cancel due to the rising numbers here in Berlin. We obviously need to stay at home more again. Yesterday Berlin hit over 11,000 new cases whereas the days before were around 7,000. Clearly, whatever is happening isn’t working in keeping everything under control. Yesterday Sweden and Denmark closed their borders and the Mayor of Berlin stated this morning that lockdown is a possibility at any moment now when before he said that it wasn’t the case.

So Ana and I drank coffee and worked on our own projects. We even had a couple of friends that we haven’t seen in forever come over for coffee. They drove across the city and stayed socially distant. We elbow bumped hello and goodbye while they sat across our living room from us and we chatted. Under the rules in Berlin right now you can have up to two households meet up under one roof and no more than five people. We were legal. We missed seeing each other. It had been since March since we saw these two.

We walked the pups and watched tv. We made food and drank more tea. And we talked about December plans again. By the time we talked and hemmed and hawed we decided that we should cancel Ana’s flight to Portland and change mine to fit more of our holiday expectations but I should go see my family for Christmas. I promised to look up what was offered the next morning. This morning.

This morning after coffee and Marco Poloing and dog walking I put in our booking number and found this screen….

Cancelled! Cancelled?! No! Cancelled!

I read and reread. I looked skeptically. We hadn’t gotten a notification yet. We didn’t even know when we had that convo. Dang.

I looked at other options and I just couldn’t handle it right this morning and then I felt like this…

This is W, the kiddo that I nanny the most right now. This was last week after a long day at Kita (German preschool). I had brought him home, we were very excited to see each other. We had had a snack, read a book and cuddled and then he got up and started to walk around and cry. Just letting it all out…the over tired, the over worked, the over played. He wandered into his parents bedroom, got up on the bed and let it wail.

I followed him and let him feel all the feels. I let him wail. It wasn’t about me being there it just was the state of events.

When my chosen niece Clare was three or four she told her Dad one day that she was all out of copes. We all adopted this phrase. I was walking with her at the zoo one day and saw her waver. She looked up and asked if I would carry her. I responded, “No more copes?” And she said, “I got no more copes.” Done. Picked her up.

W was all out of copes. He wailed and then he laid down. I picked him up and he nestled into my chest to fall asleep. The thing with W is that when he wakes up he looks at you and smiles. His copes restored.

This morning I am all out of copes. I sat in our chair and cried. The planning and replanning, the hoping and then disappointment and then rally to resilience, well, its exhausting. I want to go home so badly it hurts when another wall pops up. I know there will be a solution but not today. Today is about feeling all the feels, letting the wave crash and the copes run out. Tomorrow will be about picking up or maybe even next week. I can’t really rebook because we know so little. We will figure it out but for now I am just tired.

How are you holding up? How are your copes?