Quarantine Week 5? 13? 49 Million?
It's approximately week 5 of the quarantine and I haven't smelled fresh air in 427 days. I'm kidding, but some days this feels like it is probably true. Some days the weather is unexplainably nice for early April and I sit outside and soak up the sun and go for long walks and smile at my neighbors and exist in a pleasant state of bubble-like bliss where I nearly forget that anything is wrong in the world. But then there are the days when the temperature ferociously plummets below 40 and snow falls like ice and my whole body feels enraged, entrapped, discouraged, and desperate for an escape. We wear hand-sewn masks over our faces as we sit in the Kroger parking lot and wait to pick up Mom's grocery order and we check our news sources every morning to see whether we've hit our peak of the pandemic.
It's truly the weirdest time of my life: more family game nights than I've ever had in my life, online classes that make me publicly celebrate my parents for opting not to homeschool, poorly-connected Zoom Calls recapping the same conversation day after day after day - it sounds like, "what did you do today?"
(Insert random newly-picked up hobby here) "You?"
"Same as yesterday."
"Same.
I'm constantly battling the internal whispers of an urgent need for productivity mixed with a desperate desire to rest. The voice in one ear is saying, "this is the only time in your life that you'll have this much free time to (listen to podcasts, learn the harmonica, write a book, become an expert at yoga, speak Spanish fluently, write a letter to everyone on your wing, paint mountains, stretch). But the voice in my other ear says, "there's no point in being productive. Every day is the same. Your classes are pointless. You're not allowed to do anything, anyway. Stay in bed a little longer."
I think this battle is putting me in a funk. I feel overwhelmed, guilty about my laziness and then burdened by the work I have to do. I feel like I'm wasting time, losing precious opportunities to grow in massive ways and become someone awesome and not regret the indefinite amount of days locked inside my mom and dad's three-bedroom ranch tucked in a tiny neighborhood with cornfields on every side. My senior paper should be done. I should be able to do a full Chaturanga in my Youtube yoga class and I should be memorizing verses and reading books and thinking deeply but I can't!!!! I'm not!!!! I just sit here and I hate that it's like this, I hate that I'm like this and I have no idea what to do or how to act, which voice to listen to, how much to check off my to-do list per day or what is really the right way to go about this.
I've come back to this post a few times and tried to reconcile my internal battle; tried to find some sort of answer or middle ground or way I should be living and I really can't. I think it's okay to stay in bed a little longer. It's something I've never really been able to do and will probably never be able to again. There's something beautiful about a slow morning. But then I also think it's wise, healthy, and beneficial to get up and get moving and use this time to get really good at things, or at least to pour into things more fully than I ever could while caught amidst the hustle of school.
So yeah, less flooded valleys and more chronic confusion about what is the right way to live. I think I'm learning about grace in this time, for myself and for others, and about new rhythms and not always having to be the best... but sometimes just being. If you come to this blog looking for life advice I'm sorry I'm so incredibly void of any such thing. Truthfully I'm kind of just writing this to remember the blips and blisses of this weirrrrrrrrrd, unprecedented, locked-down, shut-in, never-before-seen kind of life.
That's all I got!
It's truly the weirdest time of my life: more family game nights than I've ever had in my life, online classes that make me publicly celebrate my parents for opting not to homeschool, poorly-connected Zoom Calls recapping the same conversation day after day after day - it sounds like, "what did you do today?"
(Insert random newly-picked up hobby here) "You?"
"Same as yesterday."
"Same.
I'm constantly battling the internal whispers of an urgent need for productivity mixed with a desperate desire to rest. The voice in one ear is saying, "this is the only time in your life that you'll have this much free time to (listen to podcasts, learn the harmonica, write a book, become an expert at yoga, speak Spanish fluently, write a letter to everyone on your wing, paint mountains, stretch). But the voice in my other ear says, "there's no point in being productive. Every day is the same. Your classes are pointless. You're not allowed to do anything, anyway. Stay in bed a little longer."
I think this battle is putting me in a funk. I feel overwhelmed, guilty about my laziness and then burdened by the work I have to do. I feel like I'm wasting time, losing precious opportunities to grow in massive ways and become someone awesome and not regret the indefinite amount of days locked inside my mom and dad's three-bedroom ranch tucked in a tiny neighborhood with cornfields on every side. My senior paper should be done. I should be able to do a full Chaturanga in my Youtube yoga class and I should be memorizing verses and reading books and thinking deeply but I can't!!!! I'm not!!!! I just sit here and I hate that it's like this, I hate that I'm like this and I have no idea what to do or how to act, which voice to listen to, how much to check off my to-do list per day or what is really the right way to go about this.
I've come back to this post a few times and tried to reconcile my internal battle; tried to find some sort of answer or middle ground or way I should be living and I really can't. I think it's okay to stay in bed a little longer. It's something I've never really been able to do and will probably never be able to again. There's something beautiful about a slow morning. But then I also think it's wise, healthy, and beneficial to get up and get moving and use this time to get really good at things, or at least to pour into things more fully than I ever could while caught amidst the hustle of school.
So yeah, less flooded valleys and more chronic confusion about what is the right way to live. I think I'm learning about grace in this time, for myself and for others, and about new rhythms and not always having to be the best... but sometimes just being. If you come to this blog looking for life advice I'm sorry I'm so incredibly void of any such thing. Truthfully I'm kind of just writing this to remember the blips and blisses of this weirrrrrrrrrd, unprecedented, locked-down, shut-in, never-before-seen kind of life.
That's all I got!