Covid-19 has changed our lives. It really has been a scary time, and as I type there are people I know that are sad, and in morning of loved ones lost. We live with the fact that we don’t know if we will wake up not being able to breathe. We live with the worry of when our loved ones go out for necessities if this will be the time that they will contract the virus. We never know if our necessities will be filled when going out to the store. We have had to learn to make do with a lot less of the things we normally take for granted. We have had to come to terms with the idea of not running out to the doctor with every little pain, or running to the store for ever little whim. We have had to get used to kids being home all the time, and when we do lose love ones, we are unable to say good bye the way we are use to. Families are stressed over money, and how will they survive with out it. Everyone is frustrated with the government. Yet with all of this…I feel my fight song is Covid-19 you will not win, You will not defeat me!
All across Social media, you are seeing a trend of smiles and encouragement. You are seeing fewer posts of people self-promoting and more general posts about mental health and well-being. Puppies, flowers, and baby’s photos are flooding my feeds and I am not mad about it. I know I have a few friends that have been making it a point to check on me. I have a few friends I make a point to check on. I have even been making a bigger point to check on my Mom as well as my boyfriend’s Mom. I have spoken on the phone and on video chat more since Covid-19 than I have combined in the last 2 years.
My neighborhood is a constant bust of energy in a normally quite car zooming area. The traffic has stopped and now you see kids, entire families, old and young alike walking, running, biking daily. Everyone saying hello as they move in a nice flow to cross the street to keep social distancing the focus. Flowers are blooming. Roads are lest congested. It may just be my Imagination but the air seems cleaner, fresher in a way.
When you see the photos of the towns and cities closed down, a mix of emotions go through my mind. First thing I always notice is how clean everything looks. How quite everything is. Then I think about how scary it is how no one is there. I think about how one day we were all there filling these stores and businesses, and then the next we were not. It is almost like we never existed. Yet we do. We exist. We are here busting to get back to the hustle and bustle that we are normally begging for time away from. For now, the only option is to sit back and look at the world. Listen to the reports; Crime is down, sickness outside of Covid-19 is down, people are being nice to other people. Just today a painted rock ended up by our mailbox. How sweet was that! Has God allowed a bad thing to change into something we can see a blessing in? Is this one of those lessons we will be talking about years and years to come?
I am a religious person. I have not always been. However, I am feeling very close to my upbringing and God lately. I have been blessed in so many ways as of late that I can not even begin to explain it. However, I am going to try. Being lonely has seemed to be a constant fate in my life. I have had the overwhelming feeling a lot over the 41 years in my life. When I moved here to Massachusetts, I felt like I had lost everything, friend wise, and community wise. I found myself so overwhelmed with loneliness. Then something happened, I feel like God took hold of me and my emotions. He opened my eyes to my life, the love that surrounds me, the blessings in my life and all of a sudden, I was content. Even though I deeply missed my connection with my friends. Sometimes it takes losing everything to know what and who really matters.
Recently a dear friend reached out to me with a snail-mail letter and an online bible study. It meant the world to me. I was so in need for the love of an old friend, someone that knew me and someone that still loved me even though she knew me during a time I was not a great person… This was another turning point. I felt so blessed and had another understanding that you can have close friends and not have them in your everyday.
Since being in this Social -Distancing /Quarantine, I have been doing breathing exercises, taking my therapy seriously, relaying on my faith and really focusing on the things I have to be thankful for. Like, I have been blessed by feeling good. I have not had as much pain. My asthma has been getting better, my back has not been hurting as much, and my medications for my PTSD systems are seemingly working like a charm. I have begun to mange my days a lot better. I am learning to spend time with myself, house work, and social media. It has been a battle to figure out but finally I am getting it. I feel accomplished. I feel like all of this could not have been achieved with out the arms of God reaching our and giving me a little push here and there.
In the same way God was working in my life, I feel he is working with the world. Sometimes you have to lose everything to see the things you have to appreciate. We often say we can’t live without this or that. Yet lately we have really been tested on what we can really live without. We have it so good here in the states that the one thing we have to actually fight and worry about is toilet paper. Can you imagine how ridiculous we must sound to some countries. Especially countries that can’t store food for a month at a time, or get medications for a month or more at a time. Can you imagine if we could not get water? What if we didn’t have drinking water in most of our homes. Imagine if we could not feed out selves. I almost feel this time is to show us as a World that we have so much to be appreciative for. We have so much to pray and give thanks for.
We as a World yes have lost so many loved ones! I do not want to make light of that. We should be a world in mourning. Yet we know from the bible it says “To Everything there is a season” Ecclesiastes 3. In my thinking we all have gained so much precious Knowledge of what matters in life and also the precious things we take for granted. Like breathing, loved ones, family gatherings, Church, dinner with friends, school for our children, shopping at leisure, saying hello to our neighbors, movies, dinning out, doctors appointments, and so much more. I am thankful for you, you reading this, and you being part of my world. I hope that your day will be enriched in some way and you can look around you and count your blessings today.
XOXO
“Sadly this was written before all the black lives matter protest and the opening of the states begin. Now this post just seems like a far off dream world, that was many years ago not just a months. “
Finding Evie 