Inhale deeply.
Exhale audibly.
Settle your shoulders.*
One-and-a-half generations from now, when you explain your experience during the only term of a severely damaged president to young adults, where will you start?
When you finally begin recounting the highly-anticipated 2020: The Odyssey, to what exactly will you attribute your exacerbated sigh and shallow chuckle? Perhaps you’re reminded of the intoxicating 2020 cocktail; a concoction of Civil War ghosts that have found shelter within the shell of domestic terrorists, chilled with the ice-cold apathy of our government.
I imagine that most people will retell a similar story because our collective trauma (a global pandemic, a racial pandemic, a pandemic of ignorance and distrust) are recorded in the headlines each morning. Following a linear timeline and describing historical events/relaying statistics/stating facts doesn’t require introspection.
But when asked about how this influential year changed you, what you contributed to your community within these past twelve months, you will not find the answer in a textbook. What will be your response to the simple yet loaded question: how did you survive COVID-19?
What are your (healthy and not-as-healthy) emotional crutches? What moment of each day do you look forward to? Who has pleasantly surprised you recently? How have you offered support to a member of your community? The who, what, when, where of quarantine will be captured in your individual response to how you survived the rocky start to the roaring twenties.
How could you transform your most-prized ritual to survive the solitude/screen fatigue/sadness into an opportunity to thrive? Yes, this post is merely a litany of open-ended, reflective questions. Honestly, these first two weeks of January have flooded my waking hours with incomprehension and confusion and significantly fewer concrete answers than overwhelming questions.
But before we completely abandon all hope of personal, country-wide, and global healing, please remember:
Inhale deeply.
Exhale audibly.
Settle your shoulders.
*a gentle reminder that, even in a moment of chaos/confusion/unpredictability, you can always regain control of your breath*