I know, I know, I am stating the obvious here. But I think the difficulty of this situation is something we all need to acknowledge from time to time.
Last weekend, I was grumpy. I just felt utterly and completely drained. I saw some mom friends at the park during a playdate and vented. My friend Katie looked me in the eyes and said, “This is hard. This is really, really hard.” Again, so obvious, but damn, I needed to hear someone say that and validate it for me.
So that’s what I want to say to everyone: this is really, really hard. There are not enough swear words in the English language to describe how hard this is!
My therapist has told me many times that she believes the pandemic is a traumatic experience. That resonates with me – but what are we supposed to do with a traumatic experience? I guess I’ll have to reflect on that in the months ahead…
There are many things that are difficult about the 2020 pandemic, but here are a few that I talked about during Episode 9:
- We don’t have a handbook for this. We are living history! There have been pandemics before, but never like this one, with social media and international travel and a 24/7 news cycle.
- It feels endless.
- There are so many ups and downs. Just when I think I have processed my pandemic feelings, new feelings pop up and down I go again…
- The isolation.
- The boredom.
- The grief. So many layers of grief for so many different things.
- The loss of momentum! Here in Pasadena, the pandemic just stopped life in March. It’s hard to get back into the groove of doing things.
- Sensory overload. The pandemic is just too big for my brain to process.
- Helplessness.
- Loss of control over our lives.
And despite all these difficulties, regular life with regular life problems marches on.
How will we heal from the pandemic? When will we heal? Can the healing even start when the pandemic is ongoing? Can we have catharsis? Is there an ongoing healing that we can seek? Where we heal and keep breaking and ripping and falling apart and healing again?
I feel so raw and transparent and fragile and tender and also I feel grateful and joyful and filled with grace and then angry and frustrated. It is so much.
I will keep paying attention to my experience with the pandemic and stay curious about my feelings and thoughts. I know I can get through this. But damn, it is really, really hard.