So I have been complaining a lot lately about my COVID blues and attendant illness. I am recovering but it is slower than I would like and if I am honest, I am having a hard time getting re-started on my life. I feel like I fell down a COVID hole and now I am there, climbing out slowly...and I don’t like it.
Much to be grateful for though. I am able to breathe. I am no longer positive. I have been hiking to get my lungs back in line. I have actually gotten a few hugs from people which was super wonderful. I am back at work. I am feeling better. I remain committed to my new eating and drinking plan. And I am generally feeling like things are good.
But even with all of that positive, I am struggling. I feel behind and that makes me anxious. I feel like the world is falling apart and it is affecting me mentally, physically and spiritually. The truth is that the world is always falling a part. But this weekend’s Tsunami and earthquake make it seem a little, well, more real and threatening. I seriously do not know what I am going to do if the locust come...or the zombies. I am not prepared for the end of the world...really. I am seriously unprepared.
I guess I am going to have to shift my thinking. I am not really getting re-started. I never stopped. Life didn’t stop. I didn’t stop. All was and still is in motion as it always is. It is a mental fiction that it stopped and now I am re-starting. I am simply beginning each new day as the sun rises and calling it a day as I climb into bed wearier than I would like but all in all, after living a pretty fucking good life.
I am not re-starting anything. I am here living every single day and my framing of this as some sort of reboot is what is killing my vibe. I am living, as I always have, one moment at a time. No re-start required. I have only to keep going. Day after day, hour after hour. I am here. Living. No reboot required.
I don’t know if this will help any of you, but this mental shift from re-starting to persisting is important for me. I am just doing the same things I have always done, no Herculean effort required. Just do the next indicated thing and try to maintain a positive attitude while doing it. That is all. A tall order some days, and a breeze still others.
It is so strange to me that I seem to have this need, this incessant desire to make things harder than they need to be. Life is only as hard as I think it is. And really, it isn’t too bad. I may be moving slower but since that is what is happening, haven’t I already learned that everything happens in this life for a reason. I tend to insist that I know the reason right now but the universe repeatedly laughs at me and moves me forward, sometimes allowing me to know later, sometimes keeping it a big fucking secret for decades.
Life is hard. Life is good. Life is life. It has ups and downs and sideways and blows to the head. It is perilous and fabulous and fucked up and healing all at the very same time. I am not re-starting. I am simply persisting. That seems easier than beginning again. Beginning is hard. It takes a lot of effort to push myself forward. I am simply moving at a slower pace, but know for sure that I am here, breathing in and out as I have for many years. And while the pace may be slower than I would like, I am doing the deal and that is something to celebrate.
It appears that the trouble with re-starting is calling it that. It is seductive in its newness and come ons to believe that I have much work to do. When in fact, I really don’t. I just get up and do the deals of the day as they come and try to not get too worked up about them. That is all. And since I am so wordy, I can change up my narrative about what it is I think I am doing any damn time I please. So I see today that the trouble with re-starting is only that I call it that. And so I change my mind, my thoughts and my narrative and just pat myself on the back here, “Good job, Erin, you just keep plugging away at this life thing. You are doing great! Keep going!” So I will.
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