It’s Going To Be OK

It’s true, you can let go of a little bit of that anxiety you’ve been holding so closely. Eventually, it really is going to be ok, it’s just going to take a little while.

In the early days of the shut down, my anxiety, and blood pressure was creeping through the roof. We were living the stuff of sci-fi horror movies and nightmares. I would have given everything to have been able to pick up the phone and call my mom, not because she would have been able to fix a single thing, but because just hearing her voice would have reassured me that even when everything is so uncertain, the important things stay the same.

We can’t fix a single thing right now, we are stuck in a holding pattern while we wait things out. We can however focus on what we do have and and be thankful for the simplicity if it all. Remember last year when everyone was always talking about how busy and over scheduled we all were? Perpetually tired on the hamster wheel of life? This is your opportunity to dial it back and redirect what your next act is going to look like. Me? I’ve gone back to school, a friend and I have launched a podcast, my husband and I have joined the endlessly long line up to get a puppy since 2/3 of the people in the house are working from home. I bought myself a few new cookbooks to try some new and fun things. My back yard garden is the best it’s ever been. Still not fabulous, let’s be clear, but my best. I even read a few books which I usually don’t get around to. I’ve taken the margin created from lock downs and slower paces, and turned it into the things I always said that I wished I could do but didn’t have the time/energy to do.

It’s maybe not that easy for everyone, the world looks pretty scary, and if you are living alone and lonely, or living with people who are difficult, these are much harder times. If you have had to home school to any degree, you deserve a medal like people who run 5K get. Maybe I just started my online business right there, selling medals to homeschooling parents that are shaped like wine bottles and say “I survived homeschooling 2020”.

There are a whole lot of things that are out of our control right now, and maybe most of you are dealing ok with things as it stands. But for those of you that are struggling, maybe wishing like me, that there was some you could connect to for reassurance, just remember that every day is a day closer to getting through. This season will spill into another, time will pass, and even though it seems impossibly for away, life will be good again. You will grow and stretch and change your way through, but make no mistake, you’ll be through, and this will all be fodder for storytelling and historical footnotes. In the interim, you can think about who you want to be, and what life will look like on the other side. Learn some thing new? Get around to that thing you wanted to get around to? We don’t get to choose our circumstances right now, but we do get to choose how we go through them.

Be kind to yourself today, and then be kind to someone else. It’s going to be OK.