Category — Uncategorized

It’s Mother’s Day. I’m assuming I didn’t just pee in your Cheerios with that reminder, and you knew it was Mother’s Day before I said it. But it’s not actually a given this year. I’ve missed the onslaught of Mother’s Day signs because I haven’t been out in months. And while there may have been Mother’s Day messages on social media, I’ve missed them because everything is pandemic, 24/7.

A silver lining?

So it’s usually an odd day that I have a lot of feelings about, but this year, it fell under the pandemic shadow, which swallows everything in its path leaving behind only the main mental event: Covid-19.

I usually spend the day with my mum, but we can’t do that. At least, not in the traditional sense. We are dropping off dinner at my parent’s house, so I’ll get to see them from afar. And THAT has been what has kept me going this week. I dropped off groceries at the beginning of the week, and usually I cry while I drive away because it is a very odd thing to have you parents talk to you from 18 feet away. But this time, when I got in the car, I thought to myself: “Oh! Mother’s Day! I’ll get to see them again very soon.”

It is so weird how this day that normally puts me in a blue mood was the one thing I looked forward to all week. The shadow of Covid-19 changes the colour of things for me, turning things that are usually happy shades (libraries!) into murky colours (the germs there!) and murky colours (Mother’s Day) into happy shades (a chance to peek at my parents from 18 feet away for a few minutes).

Even though I am so so so sad that I can’t hug them. Though I want to bring a sheet and do this.

Sending peace of heart to everyone who needs it today.

Carolyn Hax had some advice a week or two ago that was like a light bulb going off in my brain. The situation didn’t apply to my life—woman navigating her parent’s messy divorce—but Hax’s advice technically applied to… everything.

You don’t need to use one of your behind-the-paywall articles on this because she summarizes the long post in a single sentence: “When things go wrong or disappoint you or stir up new stuff you didn’t expect: Trust yourself to find your way through it.”

So keep taking chance and walking forward knowing you will be able to navigate whatever you encounter.

Or, I’ll apply it to general life instead of Hax’s divorce situation:

Information you have now + trust that you’ll get through the unknown = how to navigate any situation.

That when you don’t take chances or move things forward, what you’re saying is that you don’t trust yourself. You don’t trust your ability to get yourself through the situation. Despite all proof you have to the contrary. The reality is that I’ve gotten through everything so far. It hasn’t always been pleasant, and I’ve certainly had to mourn along the way, but I’ve gotten to this point, so I need to trust that I’ll get to the next point.

And that applies to you, too.

People have been restarting their blogs. Or posting updates on Facebook with specific notes that they want to remember this experience. I’ve tried to record thoughts here or in my bullet journal as much as possible.

It’s a weird thing to want to remember; this time period ranges from boring to scary to sad. But forgetting feels equally terrible. I’m living it; I want to remember it.

Apparently, we probably won’t.

Or, I won’t. People who are at home won’t.

“For many of us—especially those isolating at home—memory researchers say it’s more likely it will become a blur … Those on the frontlines, like healthcare workers, will remember it differently. They’ll witness the toll on human life firsthand and emotions like grief, fear, and anxiety will heighten their memories.”

It’s harder to hold memories in the brain when every day blends. One part of the article states: “We’re likely to merge together many different memories—ending up with a generic sense of what it was like, and we may struggle to come up with specific event memories later on.”

Is it important to remember? I mean, it isn’t like remembering your hand being burned so you don’t touch the stove again. We’ll remember the big things, such as making sure we have certain items in the house “just in case” or giving each other physical space while out in public. We just may not remember all the individual moments that we’re talking about right now. We may not remember the individual press conferences, though I think I’ll always remember the way the local grocery store manager cheered us on every single morning via Facebook.

Though maybe not her individual posts.

Are you doing anything to try to hold on to the memories of this time period? Or are you letting them float past, knowing you’ll hold on to the general feeling if not the day-to-day memories?

Rebecca Solnit is so smart.

At least, she is in her essay about how fairytales are the stories we need in this moment. For one, “fairytale characters are given tasks that are often unfair verging on impossible, imposed by the more powerful.” In this case, our more powerful is a virus. “They are often mastered by alliances with other overlooked and undervalued players.” Essential workers such as grocery workers and truck drivers come to mind.

Solnit writes, “We [a]re ourselves in the middle of a fairytale, and that at present our difficult task [i]s to stay home.”

Which doesn’t sound hard when you write it out. Stay home. That’s what I do all the time, anyway.

But somehow, it’s really hard. Not seeing people is hard. Constantly being on Zoom calls is hard. Not being able to nip into the library or grab a head of lettuce for Linus or hang out in the post office speaking with a neighbour is hard because all those things are normal. They’re not really interactions I crave, but I miss them because they represent normal and non-scary. And what we’re left with is abnormal and scary.

The wolf in the woods.

Somehow, having it said makes me feel better: “We are in the middle and the end is not in sight. We are waiting, which is among most people’s least favorite thing to do, when it means noticing that you have taken up residence in not knowing.”

We’re telling ourselves stories right now. And that’s okay, as long as we know they’re just stories until we get to the end of the book and we actually know what happens next.

It’s hard to imagine life ever entering a third stage; as in, if what we thought of as normal life is stage one, and our current normal is stage two, there must be a stage three that is not stage one OR stage two. A time when we can leave our house, but we’re still carrying baggage from being in lockdown, so our normal looks different once again.

The third stage.

I think about 2023. Yes, by 2023, we must be well into the third stage. 2022? Yes, probably in the third stage zone. I keep trying to creep the date closer and closer to now—could we possibly be in the third stage this summer? How about June? I’m pretty sure it can’t be May.

I have to believe that the third stage exists—not just for my sanity, but because I can look at history and know that people live through time periods and come out the other side. These types of reminders are getting me through thinking about the here and now.

There’s a reason these lines were the most highlighted ones in the piece:

But I don’t worry for long. Because I’ve read a lot of history, and I know that scary unknowns aren’t unique to our present circumstances. We actually live with a lot more knowledge, understanding, and predictability than people have throughout history.

Leaving this post here in case you need to gain some breathing space, too.