This whole week, I was on a one week, recover from the Pandemic, find my creative spark, wrestle with decisions that have been put on the backburner, and try to find my center now vacation. I can only share what my experience has been. It was for sure not the worst. I am deeply grateful to have simply survived the pandemic.
Earlier this year, I was working with two women on an educational Facebook page that would help people learn what it means to be antiracist called Courageous Conversations. The election happened. January 6th happened. Derek Chauvin’s trial happened. As I was trying to create some things for upcoming art shows with consumers, my body started not working right. I had a lot of body pain. I had stomach discomfort eating about anything. Stress and a bad diet can cause this. I had a terrible diet from reducing my shopping trips during the pandemic and my stress level was definitely high. I changed my diet to an anti-inflammatory protocol and saw a doctor. I was put on a anti-depressant/ anti-anxiety med that helps with joint pain as well. The combination of the medicine and a better diet has helped a great deal. I even ran a couple of miles without any pain whatsoever. I have needed a lot of sleep this vacation. I have allowed myself to paint, listen to music, daydream watching the sun go down, waste time chasing my dog around while she has the zoomies, eat the foods that I love that were not necessarily part of my anti-inflammatory food groups, and processed, and felt, and cried a little. I had a couple of funny dates. We’ll save those stories for another time.
I was talking to a dear friend this morning about how things are not perfect but this is the hard, I am choosing. This hard, that I am choosing, is one of great privilege. I have a job, a home, good health, a country that is safe from the devastation of war. The world is still beautiful. There will always be hard things. This season was a challenging one for me and for the whole world.
These lyrics in The Eye written by Tim Hanseroth and sung with Brandi Carlyle really spoke to me today “You can dance in a hurricane, but only if you are standing in the eye.” We were all right in the middle of it and some of us are still dealing with after effects. We don’t know if it is all over yet. Some of us are just exhausted. It makes sense.
How can you take a moment to dance in the eye? Maybe you might have to keep moving with the storm, or maybe as you dance, the storm will subside. Maybe it’s about to get a lot better. If you are reading this, along with me, you survived. That’s something great in itself. Know that it may take some of us longer to heal from everything than others. Hold on a little longer. Be patient with yourselves. Be good to yourselves. Try to be good to others as well. It has been a different kind of hard for everyone.
Promising Connections 