Disclaimer: I am a believer in God’s Grace and His mercy, so I exist in complete gratitude, generally. All of that is a given, so NONE of that which should occur in thankfulness is lost on me.
The pandemic was declared on March 11, 2020. When it was first announced, everyone I know as well as those portrayed through the media began to panic buy. No one knew what to expect, because no one I know had ever lived through a pandemic, myself included. The fright and uncertainty permeated all aspects of my being. Like everyone else, I learned how to properly wash my hands and began physically distancing myself from people, which admittedly was not the hard part.
The hardest parts, for me, include (but are not limited to):
- Being bombarded with news of daily deaths and the sensationalized ways in which the stories are presented. Those do a number on me, because I am forced to see and accept our vulnerabilities. Life sometimes feel like I am operating on the cusp of “any minute now”. So much so that coughing, sneezing and a headache have taken on new meanings.
- It is one thing to not want to interact, but it is a completely different story to know and be told that interacting with the people you love and those you must could possibly kill you or result in other devastating outcomes.
- For the most part, people’s livelihood has been affected, in one way or another; it is very difficult to see this.
- One of the hardest things about this pandemic is the ways in which it has interrupted my offspring’s daily life; to watch her navigate the interruption amidst the other challenges, is in itself, challenging too. To hear the sinister ways in which other teens are coping is also troubling.
To make matters even more intense, is the fact that as much as I have been trying to keep myself and my surroundings Covid-free, it continues to hit closer to home. First, an acquaintance’s close family member got it and recovered. More recently, four of my friends had a really bad bout of the virus. The daily check—ins that revealed how devastating it was for them took its toll. There were days when I was covered in sadness.
Then there is the matter of the gender-based violence crisis that continues to plague mostly women and girls. There is no way that we can be so bombarded by the effects of this global madness and not be affected by it. Despite my efforts at finding my daily laugh, I still feel heavy.
One of the feedback I received about last week’s blog post is that it was “heavy.” So much so, that the friending reporting this heaviness said he had to resort to two of my lighter posts. Admittedly, for a second or two I thought about that, but then I released it. For me, I like to write about life as I see it and how others in and around my space articulate their own concerns and experiences. I found myself reflecting even deeper on the times we are living in and how it continues to make me feel, how it is making others feel – those I know and others who have articulated their own feelings to me or on their own platforms (online or otherwise).
We cannot avoid what is happening, nor can we pretend it away. My friend is correct, sometimes what I write will be “heavy”, because it is a heavy time! It is a time of deep sadness! It is a time of uncertainty. It is a time of confusion. People are scared. People are literally trying their hardest to dig themselves out of their own version of despair. For some, they are experiencing situational-near-despair, so while they are not always sunken in that space, they are sometimes there. We are all clutching at something at this point. Some people mask behind humour while others mask behind multi-task immersion – taking on more than they usually do. Others mask in other ways that might not be acceptable. Some people do not mask at all. They wear their fear, despair, confusion and grief very openly, not because they want to show it, but because they have no clue what else to do or they are simply operating in what they know.
I came across a twitter post that aptly sums up how many of us are feeling after 409 days of “panini bread” (otherwise called the pandemic – LOL), but not many of us are brave are open enough to say; it reads:
“My vibe for 2021 is one day at a time. I do my best with what I can. Some days I feel like superman. Some days I feel like a garbage can. But I try my best, and let God take care of the rest[2]”
This is exactly what it is! We do what we can, and let God take us through. Some days are heavy (garbage can), and some days we carry around the world with a supreme sense of glee (superman). Despite it being 409 days since the pandemic, we are still not quite used to this different life (and all the things that come along with it). So while we are still operating in gratitude, we are heavy in our steps, in our hearts, in our thoughts and in our outputs.
I argue that it is okay for us to be heavy sometimes and to show it – to feel our sadness, because it is a part of us. No one is any one thing all the time; this was the case even before March 11, 2020.
In the words of the dearly departed DMX, “ who the ________ wants to be happy all the time; nobody will take you serious….”
But I digress…. Or do I?
We are happy and we are sad; we are heavy and we are light; we are quiet and sometimes loud. We are angry and other times we are please; we are afraid and then we are calm. We are human beings, so we vacillate between emotions/feelings. Living in a panorama (if you know you know), has caused to be all over the place. This pandemic has awakened and sometimes triggered in many of us, things that we were not sure existed (anymore). While I am not promoting the wallow, it is what it is. We should allow ourselves to feel all these things and navigate our way through them. I am certain that once this period has passed, many of us will have had stories of survival to tell that will make the history books. Whatever a persons’ preference for dealing with all this heaviness, I won’t argue with anyone who chooses to keep those feelings hidden and operate in a space of happy-public-performance only.
As for me right now… after 409 days of this experience, things are heavy, and it shows!
[1] It has been 409 days since the pandemic was declared on March 11, 2020.
PARENTING, ADVOCACY AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN 
hmmmm… 410 today. It feels like a lifetime.