Waiting, Cowering or Living?

The days go by. Just as they always have. Just as they always will.

But in this pandemic, some of us are jettisoning “normal life,” voluntarily or involuntarily, in what I perceive to be three major ways: 

Some of us wait in a “finding things to do to kill time” mode, aimlessly pulling up the internet, re-watching old movies, snacking, and incessantly keeping up with the news. I'm not gonna lie, life taking a pause is sometimes a good thing. I hope some of the family-time and slowing down of daily life continues on into infinity. But over time, what will replace the attitude of waiting, of "killing time," if the "new normal" persists? 

Others cower, afraid when they have to go out, but also extrapolating heightened anxieties well into the future. They focus—obsess really—on the negative side of everything and everyone, growing increasingly pessimistic and morbid, in spite of the fact that this state of mind solves nothing. They allow the unique circumstances of national stress to morph into home stress. Interactions with those they are sequestered with become tinged with easy irritation and frustration, displacing anxiety or being bored onto them. 

Or, some of us wake up, as we would have woken up on any other day before the pandemic, and live, just like we would have chosen to live before the pandemic. Purpose, faith, family, relationships, professional development and commitments, artistic endeavors, cleaning the house, washing the car…whatever made up life then, makes up life now, regardless of tweaks in the details.

This choosing to live on the opposite side of catastrophe doesn’t mean we are callous. It doesn’t mean we lack compassion for what so many around the world are going through, just as our choosing to live life before the pandemic didn’t mean we were less compassionate about the tragedies and struggles people were going through then.

It means we can’t help anyone—whether they have the virus or not—by being constantly morose and dramatic, feeding 24/7 on media pandemic coverage, and putting life “on hold” in the mis-guided attitude that “this is what life requires right now.”

No.

Especially if there are children and youth present, for them a 24/7 intake of general conversation and hyperbolic pontificating, along with an unceasing drumbeat of background media voices spewing minute-by-minute “updates” and speculative worst case scenarios is not exactly a great way to observe and learn resilience, calm or level-headedness, and could implant lasting trauma.

It’s easy to get pulled in to the pandemic fray. I know that I, for one, was talking about it fast and furiously from numerous angles early on. I mean, there were and continue to be so many questions. All the “what-ifs” and “why can’t they’s?” I consulted the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus map three or four times a day. 

And then my husband and I decided enough is enough. We took a two-day sabbatical and didn’t look at our computers. We read. We cooked together. We went for a walk outside. We took time to discover new music on Spotify. We laughed with some fun comedians on the internet. We went for a drive.

That sabbatical from the onslaught, for the most part, continues.

My husband pursues work from home, I continue to write, and we both carry on in our commitment to learn and grow in our faith. In this way, life feels like life again. We feel like we are living. 

What I’ve learned from this time is, life happens. It always has. It always will. 

Pandemics of nature, illness, war, and technology—personal and national, national and global, will come and go. 

They are the pandemics of a broken world. 

And so, since that world is our abode, and because of its persistent and encroaching not-always-controllable-nature, today—whatever day it is, in pandemic or out—today is no less urgent than any other to live in a progressive manner. 

And if we feel that we honestly haven’t been doing that all along—even in the “good” days, then like with anything positive that moves us forward, now is a perfect time to begin. 

Copyright Barb Harwood