It's never forever
Somehow, the people of Britain lived through the fear and uncertainty of the Blitz to rebuild their cities. (Public Records office of Northern Ireland)
It would be nice to escape right about now.
The trouble is, there's nowhere to escape to. And even if there were, they'd probably cancel your flight out.
So here we are, dealing with a reality that is once again not cooperating with our wishes. My heart goes out to anyone whose plan—whose life—has been upended by the new variant, along with all those who were already suffering before Omicron came to town. It's really hard.
Having been able to dance between the raindrops and avoid getting the virus thus far, I have never felt so acutely that this thing is coming for me. There is a sense of inevitability now and the pressure to plan ahead.
Of course, I was already planning ahead as fast and as far as I could. For so much of the pandemic, I've been running to catch up with the stuff going on in my life, never quite ahead of the game and or even on top of it. Is that just how things are now? Have I become, in the past two years, the person who can't sleep through the night and needs coffee just to cope? Is that permanent now?
This probably doesn't have to be the way things are forever, for me or for the pandemic. But it's what's going on now, and it makes sense that I'd feel a bit stressed and anxious.
The intensity of the pandemic—and my stress about it—keeps escalating and subsiding, escalating and subsiding, slightly out of my conscious awareness. In the moments when it escalates, like now, I have to remember, "Oh yeah! The pandemic! The uncertainty, inconvenience, and threat of death! That's why I'm a bit more stressed. Okay." And strangely, that helps.
By now, I know that there will be a part of the cycle where I can relax a tiny bit. The map will once again be more yellow than red, we can enjoy outdoor activities and maybe some indoor ones, and my circumstances won't require me to put myself in danger. I'm not going to drive myself crazy looking forward to that moment, but knowing that it will come eases my mind. It's good to remind myself that this, too, shall pass.
The truth is, all I need to do is get through today. That's all I ever need to do. And I can do that. I have a good track record of doing that. So do you, I bet.
Oh, but the planning. The contingencies! It does have to get done. And I will do it. I will continue to take the necessary precautions. I will get jabbed with needles and put masks on my face if doing so allows me to participate in modern life. I will put a painful stick up my nose if it means I can see my family this weekend. I'll make it work.
I hope that, wherever you are on this Christmas Eve, you are safe, comfortable, and relaxed. If you can't have all three, I hope that you are at least safe and comfortable. And if you are none of those things, hang in there. This can't last forever.
