Living in the Unknown

Living in the unknown right now. I don't know when I will be able to go back to work. I don't know if my children will go back to school before August. I don't know how we will make it through tomorrow with all four of us stuck in the house together. I don't know if someone I know or love will get the virus and get sick. I don't know if I will be able to get the groceries I need at the store. I don't know what the stock market and this mess will do to my retirement accounts.

So many thoughts and concerns, changes and unknown endings.

Because I have an anxiety disorder, all of this recent upheaval over the Corona Virus has had me in a tail spin a couple of times wondering what was going to happen next. Because I am a single Mom with three girls, I have felt insecure a couple of times wondering if I could handle this. Because I am a widow, there is a part of me that is struggling in this time with missing my husband.

He wouldn't have done any great, amazing or comforting thing during this. He would have spent a lot of time reading everything about the virus situation, and he would have spent more time making fun of everyone and the news in particular. However, since he was my person, he would have been the person I would have leaned on during this time of unknown.

If you have a single person in your life, whether widowed, divorced or never married, check on them. They are missing part of a support system that is so important in this time of uncertainty.

The other thing I realized, as I was processing how I feel about what is going on in the world and in my world, is that this all feels familiar. It was triggering something in me, because I have felt this way before.

Right now it feels like the world is going on outside of our homes. There is still work to do, bills to pay, food to cook, and houses to clean. The children still have to learn, and we will still have to find ways to fill our days. However, everything is off. It just isn't right. We aren't doing our work in the normal way or in the normal place and there is a sense of anxiety to it. Will I continue to be able to work from home? Will my company stay in business? Will my children ever leave my house again?

This is how grief feels. There is just this numbing, throbbing sense that things aren't right. Someone is missing. Something is off. We have to keep going. We have to eat, sleep, work, and do all the things. However, none of it feels like it did before. Also, since we have been through a traumatic loss we are waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

Like learning to live with grief, we have to learn to live in our new normal, which is working from home, learning from home, and wondering when this will end. Like learning to live with grief, there is no defined timeline. We don't get to know when we will get through this, and we may never get over this. We don't get to just move on from these circumstances. We have to just move forward, relentlessly forward.

We can't go backwards. We have to figure out how to get along being home all day. And just like learning to live with grief, the only way forward is one day at a time. I know, it's becoming a theme for me, almost a mantra. Today we will figure out how to not lose our minds over the giant blanket fort that takes over the entire living room, using every blanket and chair in the house, because this is what kept Chloe occupied today. Tomorrow we will figure out what going to the grocery store looks like this time, will there be paper towels or soup?

And the day after tomorrow? Who knows? We can't make plans, because we don't know what will happen. We have to wait. We have to be patient and find peace. We have to trust and lean into God once again, the only one who knows the end of the story. The only one who cares and is there, every single, one day at a time.