As we face the reality of shifting out of quarantine life, often is expressed the belief that finally life can revert back to normal. However, normal, a construct of our own minds, is ever shifting based on the reality of one of the only constants in life, change. Yes, we will re-open to full capacity, Covid-19 itself won't be as threatening, but life as we knew it pre-covid will never return and should not. For there were aspects of that way of life, both personally and collectively, specifically that of burying and hiding from the toxic ever-present that should never be nor can be returned. As any recovering addict can attest, returning back to the dysfunction is not necessarily safe, as it is not healthy, even though in a sense it may feel comfortable.
Just as other major life catastrophes, such as 9-11, life as we know it will never return nor be the same. For those of us alive prior and during 9-11 can attest, the way we existed prior has never returned. Aw, the nostalgic simplicity of the 90's, am I right? However, the 90's in all its glory as remembered was at best naïve and in other words, lacking in the full transparency that true awareness of the underbelly of darkness of such things as terrorism were apparent but not wanted to seen. For it is a very true aspect of human nature, that we, as a collective, shy away from that which causes pain and anguish, fear and insecurity. However, the truth of the matter is, as I have discovered, that experiencing pain is inevitable in life and in surrendering oneself to the journey, we find the power to transform beyond our limited conceptions, become stronger, wiser, and more capable than before.
Such is the case with the pandemic of which we are experiencing and slowly emerging out of, for this last year 2020 and part of 2021, at least for now, has been one where we have witnessed great depths of pain, struggle, suffering that which we have tried to hide from, but no longer could or ever should. During our times of forced isolation, we have had no other option but to sit with ourselves, without distraction, witnessing parts of our realities, inner and outer, that are detrimental to our health within and without.
This has caused many to revolt in ways both outwardly aggressive or passive as well as privately. We wish to stop the pain, to run from our fears, so we use coping strategies in hopes that will ease our discomfort, which only increases the duration of our suffering, not appeases.
Social media and public life in general is ripe with a aching void of divide as none other in history, racially, culturally, politically, spiritually. However, I would reckon to believe this division was ever present and continuously building as these differences as well as dysfunctions within and without were not recognized and healed.
In my own circle, I have close friends on a variety of spectrum, each responding to the uncertainties of today from the framing of their own fears. Anger, in both subtle and violent means, is most often the reactive option to these feelings, but the answer is never discovered. I have friends that seek to find peace within the confines of political rightness, mostly on the left, trying their best to choose the right words and terminology to be accepted. Also, I have friends more aligned to the right side of the spectrum who feel unheard, disrespected, and lash out within that place. Friends that believe wholeheartedly that if we all got the Covid19 vaccine this whole thing would go away, perhaps it shall, perhaps it won't. Friends that have been infected with Covid19 that feel suddenly immune, perhaps they are, perhaps they aren't.
Personally, I am choosing not to rush back to life as we know it, choosing to allow myself to continue "quarantine life", not in fear of the virus but in a need to continue to heal my mind, heart, and soul, to be a better, more whole person. In that regard, truly I am not fully ready to return and I am becoming aware that I am not alone in this thinking.
As my good friend, Randy, used to tell me, "We are all living the human condition the best we can."
The point is, we are living in shaky times of uncertainty. The normal we crave is a false construct of our own making with the hope to instill some form of comfort in a world we cannot ever control. The only solution in my view, coming years of recovery stemming back to 2006, is to go within, examine all of ourselves both positive and negative, seek healing in all variety. This affords us the ability to slow our mind, to heal, and to overcome the dysfunction internally and socially.
It is only in healing our own illness that we may heal without.
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