A Quarantine Decree

Can we just collectively take a moment to agree on one thing?……..

Can we all just agree that this virus and it’s implications and consequences have turned the entire world we reside and know upside down topsy-turvy?

Can we stop with the bullshit ploy at minimizing our emotions while maximizing our fears simultaneously with mixed messages of  “Safer at home” and “Our grandparents fought in wars. All we’re being asked to do is sit on the couch”. Or this utter nonsense “If you don’t come out of this quarantine with either: 1.) a new skill 2.) starting what you’ve been putting off like a new business 3.) more knowledge You didn’t ever lack the time, you lacked the discipline”. While being inundated with an endless stream of heart wrenching news, statistics and videos on any and all social media and television platforms.

I admit, I may have come into this thing guns-a-blazing for creativity and all that….. Then, life bitch slapped me with a little anxiety ridden melt-down…..that lasted several hiccuping days. We are all having them. At least every person I know. In our own little ways. On different days. We take turns talking or texting each other down to new normal, normal. We share coping strategies and lament over deep fears, spoken and unspoken.

Let’s just give ourselves the time to grieve this whole rolling unfinished explosive mess. Grieve the uncertainty, the fear of scarcity, the tremendous loss for millions, the lack of security for now and future.

Could we all just agree that this is a big fucking deal?! It’s an emotional trauma for each of us. In our own unique way. With our own tender spots and triggers. Some of us though unscathed by the virus itself, Covid-19 negative, will never recover from the tidal wave of destruction it caused.

So let’s stop with the fucking playing pretend. Like all I have to do is hang out in my luxury loungewear and binge watch some shit. As if our livelihood is not being actively sucked out from under us and normalcy is askew and I feel the massive amount of pain, suffering and tension of the human experience every day. As if I have not a care in the world for food or cleaning products or my home or my child or all those health care workers or grocery store workers or…..on and on I can go. And my poor innocent child that I willingly created for, for this? She is to inherit a life of quarantine and social distancing and mask wearing and pandemics unchecked in the name of greed?

I will not be shamed for feeling my big feelings and not feeling grateful every moment of every quarantine day. Nope, sorry not sorry.

I will commit to acknowledging my big feelings, sitting with those feelings, allowing those feelings to run their course (not my life). I commit to being real about and expressing my feelings whatever they may be- good, bad and ugly.

I will commit to holding space for others when they have their moments of anxiety, grief, sadness, anger and fear. I will not minimize or rush their process but allow them to grieve in their own space and time.

I will commit to perseverance, positivity and gratitude when and how I am able. I will engage in safe and healthy coping practices. I will do what I feel is right for myself and my family and use my best judgement for our physical and mental safety.

Let’s just be real. This is not an easy situation or time. I keep hearing or seeing “In these unprecedented times…blah blah blah” but then I also see a lot of implications for how I should be feeling, thinking and acting which are not cohesive with “unprecedented times”. I see a lot of name calling and shaming and derision amongst the masses. A lot of people telling others how are allowed to feel, how they should or should not behave. Fuck all that noise!

How about we agree to cut out the expectations and judgements and just be and allow others to be- whatever that looks like. Can we love and hold space for each other in these “unprecedented times”? That would be the real silver lining in all of this. Not me learning how to fucking knit or bake a pie or speak French. Can I be a kinder more compassionate human to myself and others?

A quarantine decree.

What’s yours?

xoxoxox

Melissa