My Mildly Triumphant Return

Oh my Goodness, I haven’t been here in a while. Where has the time gone? Oh, that’s right! We’re on pandemic time. It’s all one very long [insert time frame here]. It’s been a hot minute since I wrote anything, or maybe it was just yesterday. It’s hard to know the difference anymore.

In reality,  it’s been a minute since I’ve done lots of things like go to a party, listen to live music, fly on an airplane, and so much more. I had big plans for all of those things and losing them has been a bit rough and certainly thrown me off my game. I know that I’m not alone in this and that you likely have your own list of waylaid plans and jumbled emotions. 

To say that it has been a shit year feels like the most understated of understatements.

Regardless, here I am trying to get back to some measure of productivity and usefulness. Not that I’ve been sitting around for the last few months. On the contrary, work has kept me incredibly busy and for that I’m quite grateful. It at least gave some accounting for the passing of time. The problem is that while I have been showing up at my desk every morning, I haven’t really felt wholly there. Hence the lack of posts. I really don’t feel I can come to  you with anything less than all of me!

I’m happy to report that I seem to be turning a corner as lately I’ve had some glorious moments where I actually felt like myself. Enough so, that I thought I would check in and share some of the things that have been rolling around inside my head. 

Please forgive me if this gets a bit self indulgent - I promise I was going for relatable and supportive. 

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the ‘why’ behind my general feeling of malaise. To simply chalk it up to the pandemic may be an accurate explanation. However, it doesn’t feel entirely adequate. I get that things are really different right now but, I’m generally not one to struggle with change. I’ve always been a very ‘bloom where you’re planted' kind of person.  So why am I not blooming? Am I mourning the loss of all those things we can no longer do? Maybe. In part. But that doesn’t feel like the whole reason either, because I know this is temporary.

The sheer volume of different emotions I’ve had over the last 5 months are what I'm terming stages of pandemic feels. 

Let’s see, first there was a forced optimism. During this stage I worked very hard to stay positive as a way to support those around me. Remember the challenge videos I recorded?  Those were during the optimistic phase. From there came a bracing need to create a schedule. The new norm is what we are hearing so often. That worked . . . for a bit. Then it became a struggle because, quite frankly I don’t want the new normal. I then proceeded down a slippery slope of disappointment, frustration, and anger. Whee, each day is a new emotion! 

It would be nice if we had a roadmap for navigating these emotions, just so we know what is next. I think of Kubler-Ross’s work on the stages of grief. You start at shock and denial, move on through to anger, and finally end up at acceptance and hope. It is rarely as linear and simplistic as all that but, this is a blog not a research paper. The problem is that our current situation is different. With grief there is a fixed starting point, some sort of triggering event like death or divorce. It’s almost as if you start at the end. End of a life, end of a relationship. You then move through the stages as you move further away from that event.  

However, we didn’t start at the end, did we? There was no singular event from which we are moving away from and in fact, we have no idea when we will get to the end. That’s the problem. 

We were pushed into murky water and told to swim with no idea for how long or where we’re going.  

What does this look like outside of a metaphor? It looks like going to work everyday but staying home to do so. Sending the kids to school at the kitchen table. Eating out via curbside pick-up just to go back home for the actual eating part. We have no idea how long this will last and the phrase “the new normal” continues to get thrown around.  

I don’t like the new normal. It is not normal!

Regardless, I’m a team player so I attempt to adjust my expectations and modify how I do things to give the illusion of doing at least some of the things I love. It’s like I’m trying to trick myself into believing that this is good. So, I have friends over, in the backyard with a fully disinfected restroom devoted to only their use. We order from restaurants but take out only. And it works, until it doesn’t. 

I still refuse to embrace that this is the new normal. That makes it sound too much like this will forevermore be our reality. I don’t think that’s the case. I do believe that constant change and continually resetting of expectations is absolutely our reality.

What I am willing to embrace is the right now.  If I think about these changes to my routines as what I need to be doing to make the most of our immediate circumstances, that feels like a lot less pressure.  

I know that it will be a while before we are back to anything resembling what used to be and it’s likely they will never look totally the same. However, if I can make the most of this minute, and then the next minute and the one after that, I think I’ll make it through.  

So forward I go, slowly but onward, into this abnormal future, whatever it may hold.