JENNIFER Garner is experiencing the coronacoaster of emotions that many of us have suffered from during the pandemic.
The 48-year-old actress – who shares three children with ex-husband Ben Affleck – wiped away tears as she discussed how she was navigating a new reality with her young family.
The Alias star removed her glasses to clear her watery eyes and put on a brave smile, after her interviewer – meditation instructor Chelsea Jackson Roberts – acknowledged her “vulnerability” in their conversation.
“Well, I mean I feel so lucky. I’ve been in the luckiest possible circumstance,” the Peppermint actress said on the Instagram live, which she shared with her followers.
“I have a roof, I have food, I have health and so does my family. I have no complaints,” she told Chelsea.
“I think right now, what I am experiencing, and a lot of what I am hearing from my girlfriends, and this is trivial in the overall sense of what the world is going through… I’m really thinking about my kids,” she said. “And what their experience is going to be.”
The star – who split from Affleck after ten years of marriage after reports of his cheating with their nanny surfaced – pointed out that their children, Violet, 14, Seraphina, 11, and Samuel, 8, are privileged in many ways during the COVID-19 outbreak, most notably because of their access to good education.
“They’re so lucky to be in schools that offer, you know, we have broadband. So many kids in rural America don’t have broadband,” the actress said.
“We have excellent teachers who can teach over Zoom. That is a one in a million possibility in this world. And yet, it’s also a depressing one,” she continued.
“What is this year full of transitions going to look like for kids, for my family, how can I keep joy in learning for them? Or help them just continue to find their resilience? I think that’s where I am today,” she added.
When Chelsea then praised Jennifer for being transparent and vulnerable about her family’s struggles during quarantine, Jen got emotional.
“I think it’s easy to focus on how lucky you are, and that is true. And I do and I am,” she shared, as she became noticeably getting teary-eyed. “But you have to also let the other stuff be there at the same time, it has to coexist.”
She added, “It is heavy. It’s heavy for everyone. And it’s just, how do kids in this world not just live in all this heaviness?”