Beyond that, we thought perhaps the cancellation of major testing — finals, standardized Florida testing and SATs — that had always been a huge source of stress for Zoe removed enough pressure to allow her to focus on the day-to-day tasks. Her school skills, though, were just the beginning of what changed when my daughter had nothing else to do.
About a month into quarantine, Zoe announced, “I’m bored. I’m going for a bike ride.” I was stunned. David and I are avid cyclists, and for years we’d tried to get her to ride her bike — with or without us — but she’d always said no. If that wasn’t surprising enough, the next day she said she was going for a walk.
From then on, she continued to walk, bike and even work out at home with fitness videos on a near-daily basis, without any encouragement from us. Then she asked if I could schedule an appointment with a nutritionist — which was something we’d been discussing for years, but she’d never been interested before.My husband and I were happy about these changes, but I was personally most excited when, after her first visit with the nutritionist, she offered to make dinner.
But then came the ultimate test of the new Zoe and her recently discovered sense of filial obligation: I asked her to help me with a desperately needed pedicure, since my standing biweekly pedicure appointment was out of the question during the pandemic. Living in Florida, I wear open-toed shoes 90 percent of the time, so it’s a necessity — but I’m hopeless at doing anything with my hands except typing.
“Zoe,” I told her, “with your pedicure skills and cooking ability, you’re pretty good with your hands.” She thought about that and said, “Maybe I’ll become a surgeon someday.” That was not something I ever expected to hear: While she had expressed an interest in working in the medical field, she had never felt confident enough to consider being a doctor, let alone a surgeon. But now that she was feeling better about herself and her many abilities, her ambitions were getting bigger, too.
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