Day By Day
We've continued to watch COVID-19 sweep the United States, shaping the way we engage daily life. For some of us, things have halted, either losing jobs or taking work into the home. Schools and many child care facilities have closed doors for weeks, months, or the remainder of the year. Those of us at home, we hold our breath as we witness news media report the mayhem medical worker, front line workers, first responders, and essential workers are experiencing as they risk their lives each day. We watch white-knuckled waiting to see how our elected officials will lead in times of disaster.
It can feel paralyzing to be within the confines of your home, watching and waiting to see how COVID-19 will unfold. It's terrifying to be a witness this trauma. To know that those on the front line simply do not have the tools they need to protect themselves and others carrying the virus adequately. To read the posts on social media of deaths, as the numbers only climb. News after news, update after update. And here we are, another day, at work or home, another day witnessing the havoc.
Every day there is change, rapid updates, and a lot of information. It's likely for most of us we do not know what tomorrow holds for our emotional or physical abilities.
In the wake of this compounded trauma, our brains and bodies are doing the best they can to keep up and keep us alive. In grace to this myself and my family, I've started to offer myself nothing more than today.
As someone who is continuing to work within the privilege of my home and parent, my young daughter, I've witnessed myself fall back into an old lifestyle of being, taking each day, day by day. Realizing there is no other way to emotionally survive this pandemic. Being a helper by nature and profession, it feels traumatic to be paralyzed within my home, unable to address pandemic directly. While I'm doing good work at home, seeing clients, teaching, and working at a nonprofit, I still feel disenabled. So in the wake of this global disruption and the emotional toll it takes on myself and my family, I transitioned back to living day by day.
In the past found this place helpful during seasons of grief and disorder - much like we find ourselves in.
There is much unknown with COVID-19, but what is known, we are all impacted. We cannot unknow this compounded trauma, COVID-19, it will forever shape this generation. As disempowering as that is, I believe we also have a profound place of power, the ability to choose how to live each day we have right in front of us. While that doesn't mean to me, waking up and suddenly knocking out my to-do list or starting a new project. Instead, it's an invitation to be present to the moment at hand and offer the gifts you do have.
It's taking time to bring myself back to the present and to focus on what the task is at hand. It's the challenge to not to dwell on what could be or what will be or to over-plan or get caught up in some castaway vision but to have presence solely for what is. What embodiment looks like for me is showing up and acknowledging the oddly and beauty to be in the helping profession at this time. It's the weird parallel of that we all are experiencing the same trauma at the same time, that notion we are all connected. It's a daily reminder to hold ideals and goals loosely but hold gifts jointly, to give what I can, to sit with another's sorrow, to sing with my daughter, and hug my husband. It's praying and journaling. It involves making embodied space for grief, shock, and sadness. It's doing nothing, sitting under a weighted blanket, watching another episode of Daniel The Tiger, giving way to the reality my list will not be completed today, and my world will not be the same tomorrow.
I do not know if I will have the opportunity to participate in these activities that I love tomorrow or for months to come, but I do know I can focus on what I have today.
That is what is accurate to the human experience as we are not guaranteed another day or that any plans that we make will happen. We are so finite and precious. That's what brings me to the power of today, live in the moment friends.
I am sending love and care to you and your loved ones.
Anna