Day 1150 and a box

Hi there! Where did April go?! It feels like I didn’t travel for 2 years and then I crammed all that lost time into April. Whew, what a glorious whirlwind. Glorious because I was able to do it physically and because I love my job. But, so sorry for the lack of posts this past month!

For today, I don’t want to miss what’s happened. The WHO declared the pandemic emergency over - meaning it is still an ongoing health concern, but not an emergency. My first reaction was mixed - like a ‘oh-no-they-don’t’. It is in no way over. Thousands are still dying or being disabled. 2.3 billion people are still completely unvaccinated and 90% of them are in low-income countries. If it were up to me, I would not have declared it over. So I wanted to shout (and I did).

Then I felt unseen, like the trauma we have all endured didn’t matter. Or will be forgotten. Like everyone is just walking on with life like, well, normal. But, nothing about the past 3 years has been normal. So I wanted to cry (and I did).

Then I saw what one of my friends wrote. He said, “I’m grateful to be on the other side of it.” And it stopped me. The other side. Of it. ‘It’ being a horrible and chaotic and scary few years. ‘It’ being without vaccines. ‘It’ being holding our breath and putting out too many fires at once and “when will this ever end?”.

My friend reminded me, though, that there is a through to the other side. A through to the other side.

Do you know what his statement made me do? Breathe a little. Unclench my jaw and stretch out my hands. Release my grip a bit when I didn’t know I was holding tight. Take a picture of the sunrise because I can walk. Because he is right. We made it through. This doesn’t negate the fact that millions didn’t and there are long-lasting effects beyond just the physical. It will take years to recover - physically, mentally, societally (is that a word?), economically. Many of you have suffered unimaginable tragedies in the past few years, and this post is not negating that one bit. Nothing about declaring a pandemic is over means that your hurt and loss are erased. This post is holding that in solidarity with you, to make space for that despite anything being “over”. To in fact remember all of it rather than erase it. My body is still keeping the score and there are still safety concerns around my family from threats that happened during the pandemic. That’s why I took the picture of the sunrise because I remember not being able to walk when I got so sick in 2021 from my body keeping the score from those threats and losing. So, that is all still very real.

But for today, I didn’t realize how much I needed to tell myself that we made it to the other side. To remember what was and what is for me now. But also to remember that I can indeed walk and hope. I didn’t realize that the past 1,150 days have been like a treadmill - over and over again of background worry and staying on edge, but feeling like you’re staying in the same spot. A lot of hustle in no direction. But the ‘other side’ we are now on feels like the start of walking on a path again, off the treadmill and maybe towards hope. That it is ok to breathe and unclench your jaw a bit more.

Now I understand this is so messy, the recovery part, and many of us have been on that road over the past year. But I think I needed my mind and body to have an ending date, a stop to the chaos part, and a beginning of the other side. That I’m actually going somewhere. I think it helped me reframe that I can close the lid on that chapter a bit more. The worry for many of you doesn’t stop because you still have a high risk family member or you are high risk. I get that and this post is not saying we need to just move on. Quite the opposite! In reality, this other side still has lots of vulnerable people to remember, masks to be worn, and treatments to be made.

My fantastic therapist told me one time that I can leave whatever is too hard for me to carry in her office. We visualized a box for me to put the worries in and I could leave it there until next time. Or not take it out of the box again if I didn’t want to talk about it. It helped me have somewhere to put what I couldn’t name and didn’t want to hold. It’s not a magical box and some of my worries I still carried out. But it did help keep some of them in there, to have a space to put them. And, then close the lid.

My friend who wrote the quote I told you about has been writing every day of the pandemic and starts his daily notes with counting what day it is.

Day 1,

Day 250,

Day 898,

and today, Day 1,150.

Tomorrow he will not continue that count, although I have a hunch he will keep writing. But the day count stops.

I wonder if some of us need to do the same thing. As much or as little as we can. For me, I might start counting during my daily journal entries - with tomorrow being Day 1. Maybe we need that ‘other side’. Maybe we need to close the lid on the box and leave it for a while or forever. There’s nothing magical about tomorrow and it will not change what happened over the past 1150 days. In reality, it will probably take an additional 1150 days just to feel normal (although things will never be like they were for many of you), and I have a hunch it will feel hard to start counting at 1 again. But I need a Day 1 of the other side. Or perhaps even multiple Day 1’s in a row. Maybe you do too. To get off the treadmill and close the lids when we need to.

Because there is the other side. And we made it.

May you breathe today. Unclench your jaw. Roll back your shoulders. Look at the clouds. Even for a minute. And, come walk with me.

In solidarity,

Emily