Before I go on, I want to share two links with you to remind you that it’s okay to not be Super Woman Productive Mom Lady during this time. This is a trauma we are living through, it’s okay to just sit and rest.
~Psychology Today says it’s okay to feel overwhelmed and be unproductive.
~The Chronicle of Higher Education says you should ignore all the coronavirus productivity pressure.
One more thing: I don’t usually get partisan here (political, yes! strictly partisan? not so much), but the United States’ president is leading us quickly into the depths of a fascism that we cannot recover from. In particular in this moment he is threatening to end the United States Postal Service which is the only way we will be able to vote him out of office come November (since this pandemic will almost certainly mean we cannot vote in person). This is perhaps the most serious moment of your life right now: we are at the precipice and we must utilize our remaining political freedoms (responsibilities!) to save the world from Donald Trump. This is that moment that precedes all those dystopian novels you love so much, but don’t want to live through. This is the moment you must act. Find your representatives here and your senators here. If that overwhelms you, check out ResistBot – you can lay in bed nearly catatonic and contact your representatives via text! But whatever you do, please do something.
Okay and here’s the real topic: how to not miss out on life during this time.
A few weeks ago Angie from Mid Drift Movement and I did a livestream together on Facebook (we will be doing these more regularly very soon!) and something we talked about struck this idea in my head that I think is very relevant: we idealize middle adulthood as the absolute epitome of the human experience. Think about it: we ask children what they want to be when they grow up, we talk about who they’ll marry when they grow up, their whole lives are basically about achieving adulthood. Older people romanticize their pasts and talk about when they were young. We sell beauty products to women to keep them looking forever 30 (even though they will still only admit to turning “29 again”). We absolutely worship the idea of our own middle-adult lives.
What this means is that lots of women get stuck waiting. Waiting to be a certain weight is probably one of the biggest things we wait for. We avoid bathing suits, perhaps avoid pools or beaches entirely. We put our lives on hold, limiting our own enjoyment for the time being, waiting for the day when we finally have a body we are happy with.
But here’s the thing: life is happening right now.
Children aren’t waiting for life to begin – life is happening now! Older adults aren’t merely remembering their lives – they are living them!
I think this quarantine is a really good time to reflect back on this. We aren’t waiting for quarantine to be over for life to begin again – we are living life right now!
Take some moments to be mindful each day, to be in the moment. Hold in one hand all your blessings that come with this pandemic – perhaps you are able to get enough sleep finally, or perhaps you have found new and creative ways to connect with people and that fills you up. In the other hand, acknowledge all the challenges. Sit with all that for a few minutes. Just accepting and acknowledging that this is life. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s hard. But be in the moment and remember that life is constant and we aren’t waiting for anything.
So this week be in your life as it happens and next week I’ll talk about how we can use this time to dig into why we choose to present ourselves the way we do (i.e. if you never had to leave your house again – how would you choose to dress? would it be different than how you dress now?).
Stay safe, friends.