The State Of Things

This is what wearing a Mask feels like after so many months, Yet we must

Let’s look at life right now. Really look at it. The way it is. The ways in which it could be in the future. 

Right now there’s a killer virus that is rampant and killing thousands of people. The amount of people that could die this winter is an unknown that remains a deep fear. This could really be the Winter of our Discontent. That means you and me are in danger, one of us could be dead by the end of this. Or our friend, or parent, or someone we once knew. Either way, so many people will be gone and so many of us will just be left with their memory. 

But there could also be a light at the end of the tunnel. We could have a vaccine sooner rather than later. The Biden administration could take this virus seriously and do something about it. That won’t bring back the people who have died, but it may stop new ones from dying. 

Let me ask you this? Are you afraid of dying? Because I’m not really afraid of dying myself, but I am afraid if my parents get this virus, they could die. That is worse than the fear of dying yourself in some ways. What does it matter what’s worse when it’s all this bad?

Look, I’m trying to be good. I wear a mask, I stay six feet away from people, I don’t go out too much. It’s hard and it’s lonely and it’s boring. I can’t see my sister for some unknown period of time because she’s a nurse practitioner and there’s just too much risk. It’s sad. I work from home and sit around a lot staring into space.  

But then there is another part of me that has decided that I must go on with my life. I took some time off of writing because of feeling like nothing mattered anymore. Nothing I said, nothing I wrote. But the truth is, small things still matter. Life is not one big event, it’s a million little things. I got that line from a T.V. show called, A Million Little Things. 

The trauma of this life situation is not over, but I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting used to it more. There’s this Buddhist saying that sometimes you just have to chop wood and carry water. I feel like that is what I have to think right now, I have to do what needs to be done until this is all over. I read this quote recently about how we focus too much in this country on the idea of being happy. 

Let’s face reality. Life is not happy. It is mystical, heart-breaking, adventure-filled, lonely, sad, brilliant, horrific, and ultimately complex. It is the agony and the ecstasy. If we strive to be whole perhaps that’s an easier goal to achieve than to strive to be “happy.” Happiness is also just a state of mind that comes and goes, but the roller coaster ride still continues. 

So let’s strive to live interesting, complex, and whole lives. And that thing about happiness, it has to come first. First, you have to be happy, then things will make you happy. There is no other way that it works. If the thing is what makes you happy, the thing will be taken away and then so will the happy. But if you are happy first, no one can take that away from you. 

MaYBE THIS IS WHERE YOU ARE AT

But how to be happy? In the midst of a storm like a global pandemic? I’m trying to find that out myself. I think it’s actually possible. I think the first thing in such a time of outward chaos is to go within. To find peace inside ourselves. I find this by sitting quietly and breathing in and out, I call this meditation. It gives me peace sometimes, it gives me euphoria sometimes, sometimes it just calms me down. It always makes me better. But there are other ways I go within. I listen to music that moves me, read books that enlighten me, and watch television and movies that mean something to me. Sometimes happiness is just watching a really good spoof of Trump on Saturday Night Live. 

Going within can be lonely sometimes, but not if you recognize you are still connecting your spirit with the larger spirit of the universe. When you have read something that someone else wrote, you are connecting your mind to another’s mind. Same with watching a really good movie. Watching TV gets a bad rap because there is so much crap out there, but there is actually a lot of very good television now days because of online sources. 

I have found myself captivated by great TV, and it not only entertains but it can broaden your mind. I am almost finished with The Handmaid’s Tale which is a dystopian tale about how ugly the future could be. Honestly, I was a little depressed when I started watching it and thought to myself, “At least I’m not in The Handmaid’s Tale.” Because it was so real, and reminded me that my life is so much better, but also reminded me that if we don’t be careful, life could be a nightmare on a national scale.

And then in the end it reminded me that for some people, life is a living hell. You and I are living in a pandemic, but most likely if you are reading this you probably know where your next meal is coming from and where you will sleep tonight. You probably don’t live in a war zone, you probably don’t beg for money because you have no other option. You are probably not a sex slave in a human trafficking ring. That is not to say that your sadness and grief are not real too. It is just to say, be grateful because it honestly could be a lot worse. 

THis may be all of us right now

And maybe, just maybe, you don’t want to be happy right now. Guess what? You have that right. You have the right to be upset and sad and angry and all of the things that make you human. You have the right to question if happiness was ever really worth all of this after all? You have the right to question whether or not any of this is worth it. 

Most of us are sad because we are lonely and scared, and maybe some of us lost someone to Coronavirus. And these are all legitimate feelings. There is no comparison when it comes to pain. All pain and suffering is relative and it is all real. All the world is suffering right now with this virus. We are literally all in this together. Remember that your neighbor, the one you don’t know and don’t talk to, is suffering in much the same ways that you are.    

I guess it comes to that age-old question of why does there have to be bad things? Why does there have to be darkness? I mean just like you I wish none of this had to happen. There’s this theory that you wouldn’t know the light unless you experience the darkness. I don’t like that theory any more than you do, but maybe there is some truth in that. Maybe everything I ever really learned about life and about myself happened when I was unhappy.  

I mean we can all agree that suffering seems unnecessary and just horrid. But I remember my worst suffering. It was depression for me, and I couldn’t get out of bed. And it was dark, for months at a time. And now, sometimes when I look at the sun on a sunny day I can’t help but be happy. I notice it in a deep way that I can only tell you I appreciate after living in that darkness. 

Simple things are beautiful to me because I knew a time when everything seemed like ugliness. Everything in this universe is relative, and as much as I want this to be over, I also never want to forget it. When COVID is all over and I go to a restaurant with ten friends for a birthday party, maybe even my own, I want to appreciate it. When I laugh at our inside jokes and eat delicious food while great music plays in the background, I want to feel it like I never felt it before. I want to say thank you, thank you universe for making it all OK again, I’m sorry I never realized how good I had it. 

And when I go to a party with my friends and relatives and look around the room and see faces I know and love, I want to remember that this is something so spectacular. I went to a concert to see my favorite band, The Lumineers, literally less than a month before the first quarantine. If I could go back to that crowded music hall and sing along again with my friends at my side, what I wouldn’t give?

We took it for granted, didn’t we? Life? Freedom? Freedom to socialize and work in an office with people we only half liked, how I would kill to go back to that office and see those people in a new light. I happen to work with great people who I actually like, but I never knew how great they were until I had to leave all of them and work from home. 

Again, life is not a big experience. It’s a million little experiences, a million little moments. They say time is not real, that it is not really linear. That there is only now. This moment. A lot of little nows. 

Who will I be now? Right now? In this moment. 

I will be the one that says that I want happiness, but I’ll take wholeness. I’ll take complexity. I’ll take the intricate tapestry of my life embroidered by my soul. I will stitch this work of art with every stick and pebble I find, every tiny treasure that makes me smile. I will appreciate the million things that I am made of, that my life is made of. 

Not all of them are pretty but they are all beautiful. When I was 14 I wanted to be pretty, now I want to be beautiful. And beauty I have found has scars, is misshapen. It runs deep. It is so much more inside me than it will ever be outside. 

I have found that even beauty has its ugliness. 

And yet, it is still perfect.

nina 

What Do You Think?