Gratituesday: An Abundance of Good During Strange Times
Happy Tuesday,
The world is swaddled in uncertainty and our liberties are challenged by COVID-19. Disruption is changing plans, canceling weddings, and bankrupting dreams. Parents are teaching on top of their other responsibilities, teachers are adapting to handle remote education, and corporate systems aren’t designed for 100% remote work. Researchers are abandoning their experiments, athletes are watching their seasons and fitness fade away, and we are all being asked to keep an unnatural physical distance from our communities. These are strange times!
Working from home can be hard. Look what it’s done to Dad!
I felt safe and strong on Sunday, December 15th, then my world was catapulted upside-down on the 16th: similar to what many are feeling now. I struggled with staying home all of the time and learning to create my own stimulation in the void of what I was suddenly without. I struggled with the impermanence of my health, grappling to understand the rationale of disease and getting to know my mortality. My deck was reshuffled; I was in a new world. As the holidays ended and friends and family returned to work, de facto social distancing began and continues.
Gratituesday is my intentional step to focus on the abundance of good instead of the abundance of bad.
We can’t control most of our circumstances, but we can set our gaze towards the positive and be inspired by the good that comes out of humanity during a crisis. The world’s recent events remind me of the good I’ve experienced this winter amidst so many circumstances I wasn’t expecting.
I’m grateful for and confident in the nurses, staff and doctors that are bearing this ordeal and treating the vulnerable and immunocompromised. They’re the heroes and heroines we need.
I’m with my family in a beautiful, safe home. We are fortunate to have each other's company. I’m fortunate to be near nature in my backyard and see the birds go on being.
I’m grateful for the months I’ve had to immerse myself in the community and be with friends and neighbors.
I’m grateful for the technology that enables me to communicate with anyone, at any time.
I visited Penn last week for a follow-up. I checked in at the oncology center where the waiting room was mostly full. Then it hit me: there are so many people that can’t stay at home right now. People can’t stop in the middle of chemotherapy treatment and many are on immunosuppressant drugs after surgeries.
I was on immunosuppressants until early February, and I’m especially grateful for the grace of timing, which has me in a much safer position right now.
I’ve failed many times to see my own abundance and express my gratitude this winter, and I appreciate the space I have to practice that now.
Stay safe, and stay together, but not too close ;)
CB
