Hello Neighbor!

So… how is everyone holding up?  It has now been about 645 days since we started this stay-at-home order (ok, ok… so it’s been more like 29 days, but who’s really counting?!)  I am sure that everyone reading this has had their good moments and their not-so-good moments throughout this unique “adventure”.  It is not a one-size-fits-all kind of trip that’s for sure.  It clearly depends on your specific personal situation… are you or a loved one suffering from covid-19? Have you sadly lost someone to the illness? Are you one of the frontline workers that we are all so grateful for?  Do you have major financial strains?  Are you living alone? Are you living with 6 small children? 🙂  Are you an extrovert, an introvert?  The list goes on and on – and the answers have major consequences to how this entire life stressor is affecting you and your family.

My sincerest hope is that the vast majority of you are dealing with the basic mood swings of confinement – as anyone would in this type of situation –  but in the grand scheme of things, that you and your family are safe and well.  This is such a crazy life experience, one that I certainly never could have imagined in my wildest dreams.  It’s a bad movie playing out in real life.  But, as with all of life’s challenges, this is certainly one that brings with it so many lessons.  These mandated restrictions have given the world a forced ‘pause’ – a pause to let the environment breathe, to sit still with family and stop the frenetic “go, go, go” mentality, to find a way to make do with “what we have on hand” vs “buy/throw-out” without a second thought, to realize what is truly important in life, and to see how little we all truly need to get through a day.  I am in no way dismissing the very real challenges of this tragic event – please don’t get me wrong.  But, we are in this… there is no denying it.  There is no pretending it isn’t happening.  So what will we take from it?  What will we all learn?  How will we choose to move forward when this is all over?  The answers to those questions are what could possibly make this entire ordeal a blessing vs a curse.

I thought Julio Vincent Gambuto put it perfectly in his Forge article, – “What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird.”

So maybe we can come out of this experience and move forward in a new way?  A more caring, more sustainable, slower paced, gentler way?  Let’s at least give it a good try.

Be Well,
Laura

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