It’s September 1st 2023, and I have contracted COVID for the first time. This virus has been around for almost 4 years, and here I am, catching it now. Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful that it held off this long because it’s bad enough now that it's had 4 years to weaken. I don’t know that I would have been able to kick it in its original strands.
Over the last several days, I have been both equally annoyed and grateful. It almost feels like my annoyance is a blessing because catching this virus 3 years ago would have been an entirely different experience than what I am sighing and grumbling through now. I’m really grateful for that. I am also irritated that it’s put me so behind on work projects and household chores.
COVID 19 has taught me a lot about coexisting emotions. I will forever have the hardest time encapsulating all that the year 2020 meant to me. Surrounding it all and deep within its roots was great fear and anxiety, but dancing among that season of apocalyptic level horror were some of the most beautiful, reflective, important moments of my life thus far. It was a dramatic time of believing everyone I loved might die coupled with crucial time to slow down and do what I wanted to do. I wouldn’t trade my experience with COVID for anything really. I know I am probably among the minority there.
Whether things unfolded the way you would have preferred them to or not, we all lost something that fateful week in March of 2020. We lost access to life and routine in the way that we all understood and lived through it. In a matter of hours, office doors were shut, businesses closed, events were canceled, and I lost a place to live. All because there was this gigantic unknown in our faces, and we all ran to protect what was important. I am not accusing anyone of handling this poorly. It was a scary, unknown, really strange time for the entire world. Unless you live in Florida, I guess.
I don’t know that I would ever say that my circumstances were ideal for any of it. I ended up living out of a pile of clothes in my best friend’s basement for several months. I didn’t get to visit my family. My job dramatically changed overnight. Church was canceled, and we immediately shifted to streaming platforms only. With all of this came an intense season of grief, loss, change, pressure, decision making, opinion balancing, over communication, and stress associated with my job.
And yet somehow, 2020 was one of the best seasons of my life. Because all of those emotions can simultaneously exist, naturally, humanly. There would be mornings where we silently stood at the kitchen counter listening to the latest press conference updates from the governor, only to walk away feeling more uncomfortable and unsure. That same morning would end with an afternoon walk outside with some of my favorite humans (we were a family of six quarantined together) as spring spilled sunlight through the oak tres, yawning and stretching its winter slumbered limbs. That would lead to an evening of eating dinner, watching the Star Wars movie we left off on, and belly laughing together as a family until we had no more breath.
There was something so simple, so perfect about that time. There was something so deep to dip my toes into in the world of balancing and feeling all of the things as they come. There were real moments when I would curl into the fetal position on the couch and cry at how overwhelming everything outside the doors and inside my head was, but it was always met with the sweetest hug and promise of not being alone, of being truly loved and cared for. I don’t ever want to forget how special that was.
Perhaps complex emotions being able to coexist is a lesson most people learn early on. Maybe some kids grow up knowing that you can be both happy and sad at the same time, but it was really grown up transitions that taught me that. It’s still wild to me that part of the human experience is going through moments where I am simultaneously excited about what I am stepping into while being devastated that I have to leave other pieces behind. I feel like I am constantly reminding myself, “It’s okay to be feeling this. It’s okay to feel this other thing at the same time also.”
Emotions are complex. Human beings are complex. There’s a lot going on in our minds and bodies, and in that soul piece that I find really important. All those chemicals, emotions, and experiences are tied together with spiritual movement as well. And I will never pretend to understand even the smallest fraction of it, but I plan to keep learning and pursuing it for the rest of my life.
I do know that COVID has brought both annoyance and it’s somehow also brought me a lot of learning and valuable time. It would be so easy if everything could just be compartmentalized and organized throughout every aspect of my life, but that’s just now how any of it works. Life is this really free-flowing, choppy, bumpy, chaotic, mess of a thing, and I think the sooner we embrace its inability to be kept in separate boxes, the faster peace will come.
So that’s where I am at today. Today I am accepting what is, feeling what comes, and living in whatever that is. I’m choosing to be grateful for what I have been gifted, choosing to acknowledge what I find irritating, and just choosing to take another step. The next step to my day after finishing this blog, is probably working on a long overdue puzzle that’s been splattered in bits across my kitchen table for a month.
See. Another COVID gift: time to work on a mindless project that needs to get off my table soon. I hope you find peace in whatever you feel and experience today. I hope you find breath and stillness after acknowledging all of the thoughts and tough questions. Life is messy. So am I. So are you. The sooner we accept that, the happier we will be.
You are truly and deeply loved.
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