When this is over, in time too far from our liking, we’ll give oxytocin hugs and look into the eyes of strangers, knowing they’ve endured something similar in the hunkering down.
They’ve worried and missed people, resisted touch, and changed habits.
In those eyes we’ll see sadness, compassion, and in many cases, resurrection of humanity’s soul.
We’ll know something akin to what people who’ve been to war or prison or watched loved ones taken by cancer: both our smallness and our essence.
If we’re brave, we’ll change more than habits and mindsets.
We’ve been given an opportunity to reset our priorities.
Some will continue to play the games online and work away their time.
In many ways, my life as a writer remains consistent, while I recognize the reshaping of the environment and outside noise.
The world grows both louder and quieter.
Shhh, can you hear your soul?
Can you feel the collective rearrangement of reality, the realignment of the divine, the righting of wrongs, as so often happens in the face of tragedy?
It’s the worst of times; it’s the best of times.
Welcome to the resetting of society. Baby, it starts with you and me.
When I come out on the other side of this, I want to stand witness to a better world.
How dare I call this potential good when it’s obviously bad?
The same way vitality rose in me when my brother died, and I was just 25.
Five years later, compassion became my companion after cancer took my mother.
Amid my divorce(s), I understood more about who I was, who I was not, and what kind of woman I intended to become.
When we succeed—in business, careers, and relationships, it’s a joy ride.
When we fail, lose, are forced to change habits, and foundations fall, we get to choose.
We get to question, resurrect our character, and redraw our boundaries.
When I walked, awake, into my second marriage, I knew full well what I wanted and what that man offered. Hell, I manifested it!
A decade later, during the worst financial crisis to hit the United States since the Great Depression, I called upon my courage and voiced my goodbye to a man I still loved, my husband. Because I knew for certain what I did not want.
Sometimes we only learn that by getting it.
In America, our actions and policies prove we wanted money to be the bottom line.
We wanted profit and power, if only for the next cycle.
We wanted to believe the bubble wouldn’t pop again.
Didn’t we all know, deep down, the emperor had no clothes?
When this is over, many of us will have looked in the mirror to find more than lines we don’t like. We’ll find the lies we’ve been telling ourselves.
Like, we’re in control and everything is good.
That’s it. That’s the one I had to learn repeatedly.
Every time, it’s helped me to surrender to something bigger—a bigger picture, a greater purpose, a larger love for myself and others.
Our cities and societies, even humanity, is experiencing her own dark night of the soul.
It’s just beginning. Like the day you finally admit I don’t want to live like this.
Or your partner speaks some truth you resist or deny.
The way I did when a friend of a friend kept talking about Coronavirus back in February. Enough already!
We shut him down, even made fun of the conversation, as if we could avoid its bigness.
We did, the way we tend to do at first when relationships, lifestyle changes, or abrupt bad news reveals what we don’t like.
At first, I thought Corona-virus a punchline to pair with Lime Disease. Funny!
It wasn’t until a conversation with my father that the enormity began to hit me.
As a career, my father worked in nuclear nonproliferation, and in his final years investigated and analyzed Iran’s weapons stockpiles. As a retiree, he researches cancer information, studies, and trials for friends contending with the disease.
Days before the intended Ohio elections, my father made a special call to tell me he didn’t think I should volunteer as a poll worker.
What? He was serious. “Any other time. It’s not worth your health,” he said. My dad does a lot of things, but drama doesn’t typically describe him.
At first, I thought maybe he’d been reading too much. Then, I reminded myself he’s trained on statistics, facts, and validating sources.
I started doing my own research, although soon I didn’t have to. Amy Acton, Director of the Ohio Department of Health, began giving afternoon news briefings.
This woman deserves a medal for her exceptional work and the way she explains science with clarity, compassion and facts.
Then, the closings came. Day by day. Schools. Restaurants and bars. Barber shops and salons. Daycare centers. Life as we knew it fell away.
Panic, the low-level buzz brewing below the surface, came crashing like waves.
Now, I feel the need to confess my part in the mess. My sister and I went to the movies the last night they were open. Because we could, but wouldn’t be able to the next day.
Last week, when I already knew better, I hugged a friend. I don’t regret that one.
I’ve also hugged my sister. And two new friends in their home recently after we didn’t sit six feet apart.
I also bought extra toilet paper. That was an accident, I promise. (I thought the rolls in the garage were paper towels.)
My sister and I live together and typically hug each other every morning when she goes to work, every night when we go to bed, and whenever we say goodbye. She’s no longer going to work. We’re no longer hugging goodnight. When she left to go see her fiancé we said, “Virtual hug.” This sucks.
I’m not very good with rules, but I want to follow these because the last thing I want to do is accidently, or unknowingly, cause someone to be sick, hospitalized or die. That someone could be a stranger, a loved one, or me.
I choose to be educated, aware, and take right action in this critical time. So, I’m home, resisting trips to the grocery store or even around the corner for beer.
I’m here, trying to listen to my soul and let something better than the chatter rise. We’re going to get to the other side. When we come out, people will ask what we did.
I’m more interested in who we’ll become. Who will each of us, and all of us, those of us who live through this, become?
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