This is what spring is supposed to feel like. Hopeful. Light. Bright. Colorful. And most of all, optimistic.
Instead, here we are, smack dab in the middle of a global crisis. GLOBAL. This isn’t just happening in our little worlds. It’s affecting everyone…everywhere. Lives are transforming daily because of this horrific situation.
It’s hard to find hope in this space we have landed in. It’s hard to look up and say - we’ve got this… Especially when our most basic of needs are being threatened on a massive level (seriously though, what’s with all the toilet paper hoarding?!?!). None of this is controllable. The only thing we can do to control it is to stay home, stay put, and stop the spread of the virus.
So I’ve been trying to do survive right now one day at a time. “What is true today? In this hour? In this moment?” These are questions I ask myself hourly right now. “What is real and honest? And what can I actually DO?”
Sometimes it’s as simple as taking a deep breath. Other moments I am talking myself off a ledge of despair because this all seems so big and overwhelming in so many ways. Honestly, I am just trying to be present and calm. I stay busy. I feed the people I love. I work hard at coming up with what’s next for work and life. I dream a little. And I make it through another day.
We all process stuff so differently. And this pandemic certainly has made me aware of that personally and with those that I love the most. I have watched my normally effervescent, joyful child become depressed as he is robbed of his senior year in high school. No prom. No final rugby games. No senior skip day. Nothing but the trauma of something he doesn’t understand presented with no options or end in sight. All the parts you look forward to all of high school - and dare I say most of his life - are completely gone for him. And that’s only a small consequence to the greater picture we are all dealing with right now like loss of jobs, loss of income, and, in some cases, loss of lives so precious to us.
All I can do is sit and be present with what is. I am not trying to negotiate my way out of it, but lean in to the fact that this is where I am. This is where we are. This is what is. And that this, too, shall pass.
Sending love and light to all that need it.