Pre-Coronavirus, I thought being a wife and a mother of 2 girls had taught me how to roll with the punches and expect the unexpected in life; to be flexible in the moment with all the new life transitions. Might as well call me “Gumby”- (*insert eye roll if you are too young to know who “Gumby” is).
But thanks to my good friend anxiety, life can still throw debilitating curve balls. Unannounced or sudden change does not sit well with me, but I have learned to cope in various ways.
Enter March(ish) 2020. COVID-19 global pandemic becomes real in the United States. Self-quarantine. Isolation. Social distancing. Everyone home 24/7. Buckle your seatbelts and hold onto your sanity.
Yeah, apparently, I’m not even close to being ‘NBD’ with unprecedented times during a global pandemic.
But, after I let the COVID-19 reality sink in for a few days, I put on my big girl pants and supermom hat and adjusted to this first “new normal” of this pandemic. Shit happens. I knew I would get through the “safer at home policy” and be a stronger, better human.
Current Life Transitions
I tried to focus on having a positive mindset. Change is a good thing! Everyone needs change once in a while. But, ideally, only if we plan for that change though, right?! We want change to happen on our terms, so we can prepare.
However, rarely does predicted change shifting into a smooth transition happen or allow us to prepare for it. Most of us discovered the hard way that if we make plans, there is only so much we can do to ensure our ideal situations methodically play out on life’s timeline.
Like me, most humans don’t like being out of control; but the harsh truth is we really don’t control our lives, we simply control our actions or reactions to any given situation.
To be cliche ‘life can drastically change in an instant’; so we learn to be flexible and adapt to the circumstances at hand. Take “life’s lemons and make lemonade.”
We are used to being handed our personal lemons, what we aren’t used to being handed is the same lemon given to all humans at one time. That lemon being a global pandemic, better known as coronavirus or COVID-19.
COVID-19 has been an abrupt change that couldn’t be predicted. It swiftly brought fear, anxiety and more questions than answers into our lives. Although we were all in it “together” we were physically apart- isolated in our homes during quarantine.
This virus has changed the way we live, work, learn, communicate, eat, worship, shop and play. Basically, there are no aspects of life left untouched by COVID-19 or its ripple effects.
It is a rapidly evolving unwelcome change with no ‘how to’ manual. The schedules and habits we worked so hard to develop over a long period of time, in order to maintain a healthy and productive lifestyle have fallen to the wayside; due to blurred lines between our family, professional and social lives.
While quarantined at home during the last couple months, I actually faired better than some friends and even surprised myself. I think I over-prepared myself for the worst and therefore could handle reality. Points for team anxiety.
Each day I made a decision to focus on the positive, try to maintain some sort of schedule, allow myself grace in areas that were foreign to me (like being a home school teacher/coach/lunch lady/principle), limit daily news media, get outside as much as possible, rest when needed and keep busy with things I have been meaning to do but haven’t had time.
Slowly, and by no means gracefully, I transitioned into my COVID-19 quarantine “new normal” cocoon. I felt I had ‘gotten over the hump’ of the COVID-19 quarantine but I still craved life getting back to “normal”.
So I was obviously enthused to hear Tennessee would be one of the first few states to start phasing back into “normal” life. I also assumed it would be easier to transition back to the familiar routines pre-COVID19 than it was to transition into the unfamiliar routines of COVID-19 quarantine.
Jokes on me- this going to be a phased transitional approach and it is going to be a lengthy process full of uncomfortable changes.
Contrary to what I previously believed, the phased reopening of our city has been quite a shock to my system and not the easiest pill to swallow. I didn’t anticipate feeling more isolated going into restaurants or stores at half capacity with everyone in masks than the months spent at home in quarantine. I also didn’t anticipate feeling the same guilt or judgement by others whether I wore a mask or not; or being the person doing the judging. The hardest part is the feeling of being de-humanized. People just don’t treat you the same as they used to. Also how can they tell that I’m smiling at them with my mask on haha. I guess in some weird way I just imagined when things reopened it would just go back to normal, but we all know it won’t for a longggg time.
For me, I guess physically seeing the beginning of “post-COVID-19” life changes were more overwhelming than living in my own bubble. At least I could control that little bubble.
Cue the anxiety wormhole and endless stream of questions. Another “new normal”. Another transition. Another phase. Another can of worms. All too fast. I simply can’t.
But I can. And I have to. I’m Gumby AF.
And oh, COVID-19, just to be clear: we are NOT friends but we can be “frenemies” because the human spirit is resilient. And this COVID-19 lemon can make the biggest pitcher of lemonade if we come together (in a socially appropriate distanced manner) and each of us add our own sugar to make sure it’s extra sweet.
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What current life transitions have you been experiencing? Let me know in a comment below!