“To live in a pandemic means to have fewer moments of auto pilot where our brain can properly rest while we still go about our day.” (Sarah Noll Wilson)
Okay, so this blog turned into aromatherapy central over the past while, but that was never the entire point! I could/should write more about learning/coding, I guess. Creativity – although that’s not reared its head in a while (but I have all this time … hahah!). Actually, I am doing a tiny Camp Nano goal to try to get back in the habit…
But, more to the point, I also intended to note random articles I read elsewhere, and why they caught my attention. Like this one, unrolled from the author’s Twitter feed.
There is something unprecedentedly global about the COVID-19 pandemic. Never before, it seems, have so many faced the same thing at the same time. World Wars, celebrity births/deaths/marriages, the release of the final Skywalker Saga or Infinity Wars movie… yeah, okay, but not to this scale. And devastation. And fear, and, and and…
For all that this is so global, the individual pandemic narratives vary widely. I’m doing okay, on one level: I’m an introvert, I like being on my own, I still have work. I am very very grateful for a whole pile of things. But I totally understand that some people need more social contact, or to escape living conditions that were never meant to be 24/7-365.
“To live in a pandemic means to live with the constant hum of a threat. Somedays the hum might be so quiet it will lull you into thinking things are “normal” and other moments it will roar back reminding you that while you might be done with it, it isn’t done with us.”
I worry about the narrative now that it’s under control, that humankind is on top of things, because I don’t think we are anywhere near that. We just want ‘normal’ back desperately. And that’s not surprising.
Ms Wilson’s article resonated with me a lot.
It’s tough, I get it. I am far from immune for it, however well other bits are going.
“To live in a pandemic means to live with the constant hum of a threat … To live in a pandemic means facing uncertainty every day … These questions happen so fast that we don’t even realize our brain exploring the world of “what ifs”. Like an app that is running on our phone, it slowly drains our batteries and we find ourselves laying awake at 2 am wondering why we can’t sleep or remember what day it was.”
I apologise for just lifting half this article as quotes, but it was just so “Yes!! This!” for me.
Not having any sense of what happens next is not how we ‘homo superior’ types like to live our lives, and yet here we are, brought to it by something so tiny it’s not visible to the naked eye. How dare it?! But, outrage doesn’t help. Wearing a mask probably will – hey, it’s worth the attempt. Because this isn’t over by a long shot, and the new normal isn’t obvious yet.
We’ll get through this. Probably. Individually, globally. But just because we want it to be over already doesn’t mean it’s done, yet. And that’s why it’s still stressful – all of the fears we’ve already lived with for 100+ days , compounded by “Well, they say we can go to the pub, is it safe to go to the pub? Am I being too cautious? Should I, will I, wont I??” – and that’s just the pub, it is so irrelevant it hurts to talk about it so fiercely, argh!
So. Cut yourself some slack. Keep breathing. Stay safe, be kind to yourself and others. As the late, great Douglas Adams put it, “Don’t Panic!”. But, y’know, panic enough not to do anything stoopid for no good reason. This, too, shall end – just, take a breath and ride the wave and be patient for a little longer still.