Drew Barrymore Discovered Unknown ‘Capacities’ in Months of Isolation With Her Daughters

Like many people all around the world, Drew Barrymore turned in when the pandemic hit the U.S. in 2020. She stayed home in isolation with her two daughters, Olive and Frankie, for eight months without leaving. And she said she found new “capacities” within herself she didn’t know she had in that time. She confessed she “slowly unraveled” at times in the process, but they eventually “found a new groove” and made it through.

Drew Barrymore bought a house before the pandemic

Barrymore wrote in her lifestyle book, Rebel Homemaker, she bought a house before the pandemic. She was hoping to find a New York home with features to recreate her West Coast roots.

And she found a house and moved in. But within six months, they were in isolation. So, she stayed there with Frankie and Olive for eight months “without leaving” due to the pandemic. And while school went from in-person to virtual, the beauty mogul was also trying to get The Drew Barrymore Show a start.

“On the docket was virtual school for my two girls all day long, and then all afternoon I would fight to get the talk show I was developing off the ground,” she divulged, “every day was lather, rinse, repeat.”

Drew Barrymore discovered new ‘capacities’ in isolation

Despite being fearful of changes in the outside world and significant adjustments within their own life, Barrymore said she did her best to get them all through. And though she “slowly unraveled,” she also started to feel things she didn’t know possible.

Barrymore wrote “none of it looked pretty or felt good,” but she also said being alone with her daughters during that time opened her to new experiences. “I found capacities inside myself I didn’t know I had,” she noted in Rebel Homemaker.

“The truth is, when things are taken away, other things grow up in the now negative space,” the lifelong icon shared. “Human beings cannot be stopped – we are innovative creatures; we find a way.”

Drew Barrymore ‘found a new groove’ with her daughters in isolation

Fortunately, as Barrymore wrote, she and her daughters “eventually … found a new groove” throughout the process of adapting to a new way of life.

“I would help my girls with Zoom school from 8:00 a.m. till 2:00 p.m., and then from 2:00 p.m. till 7:00 p.m. I would be on Zooms trying to launch my talk show,” she recalled. “At the end of each day I was maxed out.”

Eventually, she wanted to give something to Olive and Frankie that represented life. So, she got six tiny chicks to care for when her daughters were “so afraid of death itself.”

She also decided to start a vegetable garden. She said in Rebel Homemaker that she doesn’t want to sound like “some ’90s lifestyle guru” who elicits eye rolls for boasting about eating their own produce. But she found the project, and her own potential, to be an inspiration worth sharing.