Quarantine Diaries, Uncertainty & The Truth

Where do I begin? I guess exactly where I left off, since not much has changed since we last met. I still haven’t left my house for much other than taking a walk or grabbing a coffee to go from one of the local shops in town. It sounds like things are changing “out there”, businesses are reopening and some people are starting to go back to work. I’m not sure what to make of any of it. It feels like we’re damned if we do and even more damned if we don’t.

I used to feel lame for being content with staying home so much and now staying home is what feels safest to me. It’s the place that I don’t have to worry about if I stand too close to someone or if my mask falls below my nose. I’m starting to lean into all of this and it hasn’t been ideal, but it does help to ease some of the anxiety at times. 

This time has taught us things we may have never learned otherwise. It has shed light on what truly matters. It has opened our eyes to life outside our bubble, and in a way it has connected us more closely on a global scale than ever before.

2020 will forever be the year of uncertainty. Life is changing every two seconds “out there” while inside everything feels exactly the same. Mornings somehow blend into eventings. Beds blend into workspaces (maybe that’s just me). We’re told to social distance when social connection is what we all are craving so badly right now. We’re left wondering. When will we see our family, our friends? When will we be cheering at sporting events and singing our hearts out at concerts? When will the uncertainty end?

The thing we forget about this feeling of uncertainty is that it’s nothing new. We’ve experienced uncertainty our entire lives, but we always called it by different names. Planning for the future. Getting ahead of things! Curating our lives. We didn’t believe in uncertainty then like we do now. But the future has always been an uncertain place. 

We may have lived as if we knew the exact path that our life was going to take, but we had no idea all along. We hoped we knew what our lives would look like. We planned every last detail that we could, but we didn’t know any more then what tomorrow was going to bring than we do now. 

It’s time to lean into that uncertainty. To stop trying to look a few weeks or months in advance, because the truth is no one knows where we will be in a few weeks or months, and that’s okay because in reality no one ever knew. It’s time to open your eyes to the present moment. To unlearn all of the planning ahead and to relearn how to sit quietly with your thoughts and physically and mentally be in the exact space you are in, in peace. It’s time to be in a constant pursuit of gratitude and you will learn to look for the good in people, the positive in all situations, and the beauty in life that is all around you. 

I know we all want to just get back to “normal” and start planning our lives again and I wish I could tell you when that will happen. I wish I knew how long this was going to last. We all do. We’re ready to start making plans that we actually hope don’t get cancelled! We know we can’t change the circumstances right now, but we can change our reaction to it.

Maybe the point of this time isn’t to plan anything at all (since we literally can’t plan anything at all). Maybe this time is given to us to prepare. To reset. To clear out all the baggage and stigmas and stereotypes and judgements that we have for ourselves and for everyone else. Maybe now is our time to do the inner work, since many of us can’t physically go to work. Maybe now is when we prepare for whatever might come next, so we can rise to the occasion, so we can meet the challenge, so we can lean into the uncertainty that was always in front of us all along.

stay home, stay safe

this too shall pass