Patience

This past year has taken us all on a rollercoaster.  We’ve had some steep climbs and some stomach dropping downs.  We’ve zoomed our girls nights and froze our asses off for holiday get togethers.  Each of us has celebrated a Covid Birthday and most of us have canceled life events.  The year has felt like a lifetime and yet the weeks just seem to turn and time isn’t slowing down.  The vaccines are out in distribution and there might just be light at the end of this tunnel.  Even if the tunnel seems a bit fogged in at the moment.  

How in the world are we going to reintegrate back into life?  How are we even going to start to find our way back to some place normal?  As and extrovert, I am pretty much ready to jump in with two feet.  I am ready to hug random people and travel the world.  I am ready to share my glass of wine and high five my athletes.  But not everyone feels quite as excited for human contact as me.  Some people are overwhelmed and untrusting of what tomorrow brings.  Some people are unsure of the future and what it might hold for them and for us.  This year has reshaped and reformed our way of thinking and our relationships with those around us.  

We have been forced to be patient and challenged to be empathetic.  

We are living in a state where our glass isn’t half empty versus half full, our glass is just hovering around the almost gone state.  We are parched and trying to conserve every last drop.  Our highs are fairly bland and our lows are heart breaking and heart wrenching.  We can finally see the end of all of this, but we can’t quiet imagine what that is going to look like.  The reality of all of this, making summer plans and having indoor get togethers is looking hopeful.  

But we still need to be patience, we still need to allow ourselves to embrace the uncertainties of what tomorrow brings and breath slowly with what lies ahead.  And let me just say, I am not a very patient person.  This year has challenged my need for to-do lists and planning.  This year has left me feeling unstable in my day to day activities and completely lost in my larger view of things around me.  Patience is something I have always struggled with and a year of being forced into it has caused me anxiety and depression.  The year has taken a toll on my motivation, my self worth and definitely my relationships.  I would love to say it will all be better when this is over, but I don’t want to plan too far ahead.  

I am here living through this world of patience, and I am realizing that I am trying to control what isn’t mine to control and I am letting the pieces that I can control fall apart and crumble.  Patience isn’t just in the future of life, it is also in the process that gets us there.  And to be honest, I’ve put on a few pounds over the past few months.  It didn’t just come on because of the holidays or the birthday season.  The weight just started to come on with a few extra cocktails on a Friday night.  It came on with a big bowl of popcorn for the nightly movie nights.  It came on because I wanted chocolate and I just didn’t have the self control or motivation to say no.  Luckily I am not alone, luckily a few others have struggled with some of the same things, including depression and anxiety.  

I can laugh about it and make light of it, but the fact is, this year has been hard.  And part of the reintegration back into life, is finding the things that truly made us happy, finding the things that fed our confidence and our self worth.  We need to find our ways back to ourselves, because there is a part of this year that hijacked pieces of us.  I have a feeling that this is the sort of patience that will be harder.  We won’t be forced into it, we won’t be treading water, we won’t be just surviving.  This next phase is going to be about us making little changes and then being patient with ourselves and the people around us, so that we have time to adapt and fail, to accommodate and flounder. We are going to have to make a new path forward.   

We can be in control of our future.  We can take pieces of our lives and make them easier and better for ourselves.  We can gain control of the little things and start putting our to-do lists to good use.  We don’t need to wait for the first of the month or a Monday to work on ourselves.  We don’t need to wait for the kids to go back to school or the weather to get nicer to start making our lives a little better.  Start today and start now.  Put down the bottle of wine.  Put the cookie batter away.  Give the popcorn a break from the nightly snack.  Taking small steps will take time, and not every step will feel sure footed.  And that’s alright.  We don’t need a bikini body this summer, we just need our bodies in the way that makes us feel good about the person we bring forward.  And thank goodness we still have a few more months of sweatpants, because we might just need that time to find us again.