And It All Went Quiet

I have worry. Is worry fear? I do not know, but I do have worries. I think we all have some, or a lot. 

 I worry about my husband going off to the police department each day riding in a vehicle shared by others. I worry about my friends who are nurses. I worry about the women who have recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, needing surgery and treatment.  I worry about the health of my Make-A-Wish kids that I’ve helped to grant their wishes. I worry about my daughters, my son-in-law....

And while I worry I also miss things, simple things. I miss sitting close to a friend, sipping wine and sharing laughs. I miss hugging my children. I miss kissing their cheeks over and over again until they laugh and giggle and tell me to stop. I miss standing in line at Starbucks for a coffee treat chatting with complete strangers about whatever is happening that day. I miss running into a friend at the grocery store and stopping to chit chat. 

What I’m not missing out on is the opportunity to be more intentional, even at a distance, with the people that mean something to me. Whether it’s a text message or showing my friend for the first time in all of her years of owning an iPhone that she can FaceTime. My best work friends and I have had a great time this week with Marco Polo by having show and tell every night. We showed off our most fabulous shoes,  showed off our most amazing earrings,  showed off our favorite products...adults being silly, laughing.  That is tending to mental health. 

My lifelong best friend and our six daughters have a group Snapchat that we entertain each other with. A snap might be my BFF’s oldest daughter sharing the beautiful landscape from her home in Arizona...or it might be all us sharing our poorly pedicured feet. We reply with lots of laughing emojis. We share texts of virtual teaching, confused faces of remote working, the nurse uniformed to care for the contaminated, and lots of general silliness. These are a group of girl pictures of: connected by love.  

Keeping routine, now that keeps you healthy. I wake up every morning and I make my bed, make some coffee, open all the blinds in the house so the sunshine pours in, I apply mascara and lip gloss and every day at 11am I go for a walk with my lunch buddy— just like we would on any other Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,  Thursday or Friday. Except we are not walking side-by-side. Nope. Instead we send each other a picture of ourselves and say “go!” and go we do for 30 minutes. 

Yes, life is different. Life is still. Life is quiet. But what life isn’t [for me] is lonely. 

Even in this unprecedented time that I hope I, that we, never have to experience ever again...I found a way to let God‘s blessings of good friends shine on me each and every day. Stop, look around, listen to the birds sing, notice neighbors taking walks.  Don’t look past your mailman, grocery clerk or your trash man...be thankful for their service, their commitment to us all.

One day we will wake up and the world will have it’s arms open, ready to embrace us all again. And we will forever be changed by one thing—a virus.