Ok so first day of work re-entry done!
It wasn’t too bad. 461 emails later and I am still standing.
I think I am now in the place where the afterburn has stopped and the chutes have deployed and I am floating to splash down. Which is nice if you can just relax and enjoy the view. I have a tendency though to brace for the fall. I am trying to not do that and just allow the moments I am floating back into my life, to just unfold.
What I have learned is that the floating, the time after the hard re-entry of afterburn, is the time when I can make some new choices. I have to see that I do not want to just float back into old habits that weren’t serving me. I can use the time casting back into daily living to be something that alters my course in some positive new way. I am not going to change it all but I can take notice of what thing I would like to change and commit to a new trajectory.
In many regards, I think the whole world is adjusting to the new world order. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I am concerned about the Delta variant and all the other variants that we don’t even know about yet. I am walking through my days pretending that life is somewhat like it used to be but...it really doesn’t feel that way. If I am honest, there is a giant shoe shadow looming daily. I cannot shake that feeling. Can you?
But what I have come to appreciate in the hang time is that there is nothing I can do about the pandemic and its course. I have done what I can do. I have stayed home. I have worn a mask. I have been vaccinated. I am mindful about things to the degree I feel comfortable.
I read a headline in the New York Times today that said life after the pandemic has created a dystopian life for many people in the world. We are all reconnecting but not feeling the connection in the same way that we used to. I mean, how could we possibly? Being separated and locked in your house for a year and half does change a person, a society, a world.
It is hard for everyone not to feel somewhat misguided and misaligned as we move forward. There is a lot of crazy stuff going on and it isn’t hard to see that the world we live in today is not the same, and it never will be again. I feel it too. There is a kind of hopelessness that seems to persist just underneath life now. I feel like I have to say that outloud. I have to own that there is a certain level of despondency about the world, life, my life that wasn’t there before...I choose to remain focused on the positive, but I cannot ignore the giant shoe feeling. It is present at all times for me, and I think for many, many others.
So we carry on. Me with my float to splash down. Doing the best I can to juggle life, work, teenagers, goats, pets, household chores and the ever present task of trying to take better care of myself. It seems like a lot. And it is.
So for me I am going to try to enjoy the process even when it feels scary or out of control. I can change the things I can, I can focus on the good while acknowledging the not so good. I can take each moment as it comes and believe that I am being cared for, held, righted in each moment that I move closer towards the light. I have to remember that so long as I pack the parachute, I can always deploy it when I feel like I am free falling. And sometimes those safety devices come in the shape of friends, co-workers, therapists, family, pets and sometimes I find that I can save myself just by making the time to sit on the cushion and just watch the world go by as I float back into my life, doing my best not to fear the landing.
