Appreciating the Muddy Parts of Life

We can’t turn on our televisions, open our social media accounts, talk with friends and neighbors or read the news without the word Coronavirus smacking us in the face like a big fat spit wad. I’m wondering if there is anything else happening in the world. I mean are animals still migrating? I wonder if they are as confused as we are by these times.

And what I mean by confused is that one day I feel totally normal like it’s a summer day at home with my kids and the next I feel like I’m living in a space between the minutes. Like I’m still in shock that this is happening yet it feels like just another day in quarantine. If I was to ever understand what it’s like to have a split personality, this might be it.

I wrote a blog post a couple of years ago about the emotions around sending my first born off to college (it’s still in draft mode so don’t bother looking for it) and as I read through it the other day, I’m dealing with isolation in the same way.

I likened it sitting in a mud puddle. Like at first it’s uncomfortable AF. It’s cold, sticky, oozing into all the wrong places but the more I sit in it, it starts to feel like just another layer of my skin.

There are many emotions swirling around right now and while all the thousands of jokes and memes about drinking all the drinks, eating all the comfort food and letting it all go are funny for a second, there is nothing funny about shooing these important emotions aside.

One thing I learned from my sending my daughter away to college was that it was okay to feel the way I feel. It was important for me to feel those tough emotions so that I could firmly place myself in that moment in time. Feeling all the feels is healthy! It’s necessary! And it’s totally fricking normal!

Society has a great way of telling us to stop feeling. Anxious? Don’t be dumb - drink that shit away. Craving love but don’t know where to find it? We got you - have a double cheeseburger and fries delivered right to your door. This has been happening since way before Coronavirus and I think it got its day in the sun when this all hit.

We are human beings. We have feelings. We are SUPPOSED to have feelings. That’s what makes us HUMAN! We must own the sadness. Own the anxious feelings. Own the upside down of each day. What’s cool is that when we acknowledge those feelings, we also notice the happy. We get to feel the delight of hanging with your kids. We get to feel the joy of sitting on the front steps on a warm and sunny day. We get to feel the gratitude of having a family pet. We get to feel hope at reading good news. We get to feel appreciation for technology so you can Facetime your friends.

As some point, an insightful human once said, “If you numb the dark, you also numb the light.”

It’s okay to sit in this moment in time, even if it is as uncomfortable as landing in a mud puddle wearing head to toe denim. Yuck. It makes me squirm just picturing that! Feeling our emotions, especially during this time, is healthy. It’s never been okay to ignore how life makes us feel. It’s how we process those feelings and learn from them that matter.

My daughter went away to school and for a few months, I didn’t feel like my life was real. Physically, she had always been a part of my daily life. Then she wasn’t. I felt off like I was missing a limb. I constantly caught myself saying party of five rather than four when going out to eat. But after a while, I settled into this new life of hearing my daughter’s voice over the phone more than I did in person. I loved learning about her week and how her training was going. I was proud to hear how she was handling difficult situations and relief that she had created some tight relationships with her teammates already.

Life changes. Not always the way I want but it’s still going to happen. How I handle that change, how I feel during it, and how I move on from there is all I need to concern myself with.

So. welcome to another mud puddle of life. Soon, after we stay home for a bit longer, we’ll be able to step out of the goo, rinse off and appreciate—with zeal—where our feet are headed next.