Saturday March 28th - Thursday 2nd April 2020
If I were to sum up this post in a word, then the word to best describe it would be 'mixtures'.
The past 6 days have been a mix of activity and emotion.
I had planned on taking a break from '19' for the 12 days following my last post, to read a book I have longed to read. In fact, I have been attempting to give myself the time for the past year now. It's been a mixture of honest attempts at prioritising appropriately, wrestled with the reality that life has gotten in the way as well as myself allowing things to get in my way. (If it were one of them, then it would probably be the latter reason.) The more time passed from my original intention, the further from achieving it I was. I really have let myself down organisationally and self-revelationally - if that be a word - because what I have read of the book, so far, is revelationary to me.
More on that in another post.
The time we now spend together as a family, the more we become exposed to moments and experiences where we wouldn't be anywhere else in the universe: baking cakes, playing handhelds classics - a favourite, chillaxing, reading or being read to, eating cake we've baked, feeding ducks, smiling and cooking large marshmallows on our allotment bonfire.
Blissful.
However, I would be lying if, along with moments of clarity, our times weren't also charged, manic and claustrophobic, giving rise to yet another example of how that word, 'mixture' plays into our lives. Judging from conversations with family and friends, this all comes a part of the 'new norm,' but it's understandable when we are all living in one space for 95% of the time and for the foreseeable lockdowned future.
But it saves lives and protects our beloved NHS.
Inner emotions, for myself, have also been frayed. Following my recent listening to a podcast by the amazing Rob Bell, the notion of working through the stages of grief give light to why, I feel, so many of us struggle. Denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance are all acceptable feelings as we wade through our new way of living. I find myself more at the second stage right now as more information is released from China regarding either the true nature of their exposure to the coronavirus and how much might actually be watered down, to reeling at the epicentre of how this virus came into being.
It's hard enough it understand when people don't learn from BIG mistakes, but coming to terms at how a nation didn't, is unfathomable.
I hope I skip stage three, for my family's sanity and I really don't know how I would bargain with what we are going through. There is no room for that.
As a family, we conflict with ourselves as well as the present times, as do we all, but the photos show what is truly important.
Living out Heaven on earth, with the people I most look forward to sharing that time with.
