Together, Apart

Is anyone else's soul crying right now? I say soul because my eyes have not shed one tear since this all began. NOT ONE TEAR. Which is so strange for me.  But my soul? It heaves up into my throat until I feel like I can't breathe.  I worry that the virus has taken hold of me somehow in it's quiet stealth.  I hold my breath for 10 seconds like that one article that I read told me to do to reassure me that my lungs are fine and I breathe out as slow and controlled as I can.

I feel like I am in a totally unique place.  This is in part because I am a 4 on the enneagram scale and I always feel like whatever I am feeling or experiencing is completely unique to just me and there is no way that anyone else could understand.  But also because, yeah, THIS IS A UNIQUE PLACE.

On one hand I am super comfortable at home, disturbingly so.  In some weird way it's like the world has shifted to what I always wanted it to be.  My family, at home, SUPER simplified and intense.  No schedules or running around or intense extroverted requirements.  This is kind of my dream.

But of course it's not my dream because we're in a global pandemic and no one knows shit about how this is all going to play out and to speculate and conjecture is just driving us all mad. NO ONE KNOWS.

Week 1 I did a cute little art project with the kids.  I pulled out my good watercolors and paper and they filled their pages with sloppy rainbow goo and I meticulously copied some hand-lettering I found on pinterest of the phrase "We're all in this Together."  We've heard the phrase thrown around, we've seen the ridiculously catchy and coordinated rendition in High School Musical.  The truth is; we are and we aren't.

A few weeks back (who can count?) our pastor was preaching from an empty church, live streaming on a Sunday at 10.  I'm paraphrasing in an embarrassingly simplified way, but what he said was "we're used to going through hard things together, and here we are, alone, but together."  The truth is that technology is a sorry replacement for classrooms and churches, nights out with friends and meetings. More importantly, hugs from loved ones and hands on weary scared knees.  For those of us with introverted tendencies it's that much harder to log on.  It takes so much out of us that after a morning of zoom meetings for my kids with teachers for various subjects I can't bring myself to go to the moms group meet up that I probably need more than anything.

THIS IS THE WORST.  But it isn't. I'm not dead.  No one in my family or close circle is sick.  Ian is actually working MORE from home than ever, and I'm getting relief pay from my tiny teaching job.  We are truly in the best place that we could be in right now and it's still the hardest things we've ever done.

Now comes the reason that I don't hit publish anymore, don't post almost anything.  What's my point? What's the thesis here? (Because you know the English major in me needs one and cringes every time I use a preposition to start a sentence...I'm sorry, it just FEELS RIGHT.)

I don't have one.  Other than to vent, and flex my writing muscle, and freeze this bizarre moment in time for future Becky.  I don't have words of wisdom or a way to fix any of this.  But, I'm learning each day to appreciate where my feet are.  To be here in these moments and hours and days and weeks.  We'll never get them again and they are hard and crazy and incredibly precious.  Some days I'm in my pjs until 2, just trying to survive, others I'm chopping wood and planning my vegetable garden and dreaming of fresh lumber for long anticipate projects. 

We ARE all in this together. In our own ways.  In our own places.  Together, apart.