Roll with it

There’s so little we can actually control in our lives. We can control our day to day decisions of what we do and who we talk to and how we want to spend our time and energy and emotional responses. But in the grand scheme of things, the world is really out of our control. The earth keeps spinning and time keeps moving and we can either keep up with it, or get stuck and let it pass us by.

I haven’t been in a true “quarantine” since I’m technically an essential worker. My life still has some sort of semblance of normal. I can still leave my apartment to go workout, I can still go to the grocery store (with a mask on and keeping six feet from other shoppers), I still stay with my mom a couple nights a week to see her and the dogs. But my life, just like literally every other person’s on Earth, has drastically changed. Even the normal things aren’t normal. Grocery shopping requires a mask. Seeing friends requires internet and a video chat. Coming home from work requires HAZMAT level of sterilization.

We can’t control those things. That’s the world we live in now and will likely be living in for the foreseeable future. Even when things “slow down” and “get back to normal”, I think people will always be cautious and weary in crowds. Masks will be worn at Disney. People will wipe down movie theatre seats. Gloves will be worn on public transit.

But we can control how we react and feel about these changes. By not trying to control our world, we can control our emotions and our reactions. I’m not saying we should blindly accept things as they are and never try to change our situations. But when we realize things are out of our control, we take back control of ourselves and our lives and our feelings. By accepting I have to wear a mask to order take-out, instead of resisting it and getting frustrated that it’s “not normal”, I’m taking back control of my emotions.

We’ve all been dealt a pretty crappy and scary hand right now. The good news is we’ve ALL been dealt this hand. And collectively, we can roll through this time, together.

Until then, I’ll be dreaming of the days when I was biking through parks and swimming in oceans and running across bridges and dancing in bars and eating in carved out caves and climbing mountains and cheersing to sunsets and hugging my friends.