Life is a Challenge on its Best Day

 

Life has its ups and its downs. We battle depression, we are crying, we are happy, we are all over the place emotionally. This chaotic time is filled with unknowns bringing on more anxiety, more fear, and followed by more unknowns. These last few years have been hell for so many of us. With the world poking its head back out into life, I have to wonder what life seems like again. Can we safely resume life as it was, or is how we move through it now changed forever.

Recently a lot has been happening in my world and honestly, I need a solid week of sleep, but I wonder if that would even achieve making me less weary. This life, this one precious life has been topped and turned and overturned. I have been at work through it all and as that gave me some anxiety as well, it also let me feel a bit grounded. We could still talk face to face, or mask to mask, we still achieved our goals for work and also for the agency. We moved through the fear to get the job done and we were all ok doing so. 

What I wonder about, and perhaps you do too, is will we feel safe to pick up where we left off years ago. I feel like I was barely surviving and now people want us to feel safe gathering. Meeting out in public to eat, and to gather I fear will never be the same. I write I do photography, I still worked through this chaos. I know I was lucky to keep getting paid. I know what a blessing it is to have a job I felt safe going to in this chaos, but let me say that even if this all tried to go back to normal, I will not.

These few years feel like lost years. I missed out on holidays with loved ones. I lost trips I planned on taking. I felt confined to home and work to feel safe. I struggled with depression and anxiety. I did my best to keep my life going, but at what cost to my mental health. Are we all just picking up where we left off? Or are we altering how we live permanently? 

Life always has ups and downs. We ebb and flow. We go this way and that. At the end of the day, we all just want to be ok. I know for me this chaotic time has changed me. The way I see others, the way I feel safe. The way in which I say no to things that do not make me feel ok. I know I now limit myself much more on what I do and how I do it. I know my life is changed, but maybe that is ok. I now feel fine saying no to anything someone asks me to do. I feel fine staying in and cleaning the house. I feel fine living my life without answering anyone for my no's. 

Life has changed. The world has changed. Perhaps it is for the better. Maybe this time of chaos was a time for us to really look at our own worlds and decide what was important and what we could leave behind. I donated a ton of things to goodwill. I let so much of my material things go. I felt fine saying no to anything I wanted to. I worked on writing more, drawing more, turning inward, and exploring more of what I wanted to achieve with this one precious life. Perhaps we were all given a gift in the most roundabout way a gift can be given. 

Life is a precious gift every day, but now it seems even more so. We are emerging into a fresh outlook on life, on our families, on our possessions. At the end of the day, I truly believe we will all be ok!! I pray you are well. I pray you are finding your gifts. I pray you are enjoying life at a level you feel safe about.

Happy Sunday to you all!!

May this and every day you have on this lovely earth be a gift you receive and are thankful for.

I am thankful for all of you!!

Your story teller/poet

Debbie

xoxoxox