It’s been slow but it’s happening again. With all the best intentions, I’ve been filling every space in my life with something. Whether it be information or activity or work or all three, this morning the alarm went off and I was met by an old familiar friend. An immediate rush of anxiety and stress.
The good news for today is that I immediately noticed it and tried to slow it down. I asked what was the cause. I maybe identified it and I think I slowed it. It wasn’t too bad and it’s mostly the pre vacation stress of getting all of my ducks in order.
What it did make me realize is that I am slowly backsliding towards the chaos of prepandemic life and I need to check it. I still can and so can you.
I am lucky. I know there are people who’ve lost jobs. I mean technically I think I have lost some but I’ve adapted. After hard slides, I’ve looked at this time as an opportunity and have been mostly okay. No one, however, is immune from the constituted stress of the unknown and as Louisiana (and all of America) slowly slides back towards Phase 1 and god forbid reclusure, the whine of tension in the background returns.
A large chunk of the world is pressing on to “return to normal”, that benchmark of discontent we all wallowed around in for god knows how long, and I get it, forging on towards something we don’t know is unsettling, but the normal of early March was way worse for mentally than now.
As we enter July we are all confronted with the erosion of the last two months, the “we have 4 months to figure out school and sports,” sliding away faster than the Louisiana wetlands. Daily we see we are no closer to real plans and decisions with 30 days to go. This is causing your stress.
It seems like we based all the plans on the “disappearance” of COVID-19. Wishful thinking that the heat of June would just kill it off (not how that works by the way) and now we are confronted with the fact that it’s neither dead nor did the sacrifices of the spring teach a lot of us anything. The small uptick in business slowly reverting to diminished numbers as fear and the unknown continue to show that we have changed how we consume things and that’s not changing anytime soon.
You can come up with and waste your time telling yourself and anyone else that it’s “fake” or that “it’s no big deal” or that “everyone has to get it for herd immunity.” If you need some justification to explain everything a way, knock yourself out. What you are left with is this. Regardless of how you got here or what if anything other than nature is at fault, you have to deal with it and adapt. Ignoring it away won’t work.
So this morning, I checked myself a little. Toned down the coffee consumption by a cup and I’m breathing deep. I’m not going back to filling my days with chase. Smarter and less will be my work goals. There’s still a long way to go. The sooner we all realize that, the better we all are.
#hugsandhi5s
