It’s been a little over a year since quarantine started here in Kansas City. No doubt at times the challenges have felt soul-crushing and maybe there have been moments when the weight of it all has left me feeling trapped under its heaviness. But, lately, I’m realizing that I have never truly been crushed.
“High-Risk”
When they announced a worldwide pandemic and shelter-in-place orders I didn’t know if I would live to see March 2021.
Being labeled “high-risk” was supposed to put a FEAR in me, but instead, it put a FIRE in me.
A fire to live. A fire to do what matters. A fire to throw off what hinders my chances of living. While the rest of the world felt claustrophobic being confined to their homes, I felt a freedom to breathe for the first time in a long time.
I realized that I had been living for my treatments instead of doing my treatments in order to live. With stay-at-home orders I had to cancel my March and April appointments, that was 50 appointments! Without appointments, I didn’t even know how to spend my time. What did I like to do? What kind of shows and movies did I like to watch? Did I still have friends that I could call, or had I ignored them for too long? Am I a night owl or a morning person?
The irony of it all is that before the term “high-risk” was even a thing, I was living the life of someone “high-risk,” and when I was actually labeled “high-risk” I started to live for the first time.
A Chance To Live
Turns out, I’m more of a reality TV kind of gal, TLC is my cup of tea, but YouTube is my guilty obsession. Working out is one of my favorite things to do, apparently, even in the rain, you can find me smiling on my walks. I reconnected with people I hadn’t talked to since I was 10, and my established friends turned into sisters.
A little sunshine, a little coloring, and a little praise music turns into more of a church service for me than most Sunday mornings in a building. (Although I will admit that I’m counting down the days till I’m back in-person at a Sunday service) I’ve painted my nails 52 times in the last year, and I’m still as bad as I was a year ago.
My cooking, on the other hand, is not as bad as a year ago, and I’m quite fond of meal planning, meal prepping, and cooking. I can now tell you about every single one of my neighbors, of course, I refer to them by their dogs.
My meditation app says that I’ve meditated 300 times in the last 365 days. I’m pretty slow at memorizing scriptures, but I enjoy it when the verse I’m memorizing randomly pops into my mind throughout the day. Reading before bed changes my sleep for the better. “Whoa That’s Good” is my favorite podcast.
As quick as hot fudge melts my ice cream, does a hot fudge sundae melt my heart. Did you know that your family is only one call or facetime away? I didn’t until a year ago.
It’s still up in the air whether I’m a morning person or a night owl…seems like I’m somewhere in-between. My pets are my babies and I’m more obsessed with them than I care to admit.
Starting my day with Jesus in a hard copy of the Bible has changed me.
I enjoy watching the trees change each season and there’s much more beauty to be seen in a quick glance at the sunset than spending an hour scrolling through my socials.
In a time when the world shut down and we were supposed to live paralyzed by fear. It wasn’t all bad.
Silence is Golden
For those who don’t know, my year was filled with plenty of hard, gut-wrenching moments; from the loss of family members to me being hospitalized and facing death myself. At one point, I stood in an ER in 2020 and the man touching my arm dropped dead next to me. I stood in the COVID ICU too many times and I heard the tears and the screams. My eyes witnessed my family and friends fight on the frontlines as they battled a disease that had no intention of being stopped. Through FaceTime and phone calls I watched my mom battle her own disease in hospital rooms that I wasn’t allowed to enter. Relationships around me were tested and pushed to their limits, maybe beyond their limits.
This year was not for the faint of heart, and more than any other time in my life I was brought to my knees gasping for air. In no way am I here to nulify or diminish what this year has brought to us all.
But, if you’re reading this, then you made it, we made it. We don’t have everyone beside us that we did last year and that is felt. But, there’s something about this past year. I know you know it too. When you look at the ones around you and the person you are today, you see it too. Life is different, but it’s not all bad. I want you to look for it this week and capture that moment when you see it too.
For me, it was sitting in silence by the lake a few weekends ago watching some of the family fish, while my mom and I simply let the sun nourish our souls. A year ago, we couldn’t hear the silence in our family. Life was too loud, and yes, there is still a lot of noise surrounding our family, but these days we’re okay with finding the silence and even better for it. Watching the sun set over that lake I knew in that moment that where we are and what we’ve journeyed through, it’s not all bad.
He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.’
Psalm 46:10
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