The beat goes on

All day yesterday I thought it was Wednesday. Hello, today, on True Wednesday. Coming at you live this morning, without a true point here and on only four hours of sleep due to a combination of up too late reading/almost 16 year old dog gets up at 5, so the grammar and writing will not be tight and we will be okay with it. 

It feels like we're moving back towards...a livable life? I don't want to say "normal," because I think a lot of us realized we didn't exactly flourish in what was passing as normal and you will drag me back there kicking and screaming. But then we didn't flourish in serious nail biting beginning quarantimes, either. And we struggled in the in between periods of the summer and early fall as the federal government left us hanging out to dry and most of us grappled with individual risk/reward scenarios. Now, with smart people who are able to be vaccinated getting vaccinated in the interest of public health and the economy, it feels like we've learned some shit over the past year about ourselves and the society in which we live and we are poised on the precipice of flourishing. And it is a little hard to muster up the energy to do that given the collective heaviness we've been living under. Right?

Who's with me?

In any case it makes me so fucking happy to see people together after being vaccinated. I have girls weekend with my BFFs of 30 years coming up in less than a month and I am looking forward to it in an indescribable way. 

One of the things I've been doing recently is purging, reorganizing, and redecorating. As walls get painted in Philly for the first time in many years, I'm changing up the gallery wall on the staircase. I was going through photos to put on canvas, and as I extended past March 2020, it feels like looking at a different life. 

I used to get up for the sunrise no matter what, and I'd miss most sunsets and be a tired troll by 3 pm. I truly love and prefer to do the sunrises, but the past year has taught me that what I love even more is getting the appropriate amount of sleep and navigating the day from a well rested place, which I can't do if I force myself to get up for every sunrise just because why? It's what I do? Nah. That's not a good reason at all. I still do it (photo above from this morning, an out of necessity rising), but not as often as I used to, and guess what? I haven't withered away from crushing disappointment in life or myself for missing something I love. What I have been able to do is see a lot more sunsets and find a similar solace and peace in them and still get the amount of rest I need.

The cadence of my life feels different coming out of the first year of life in the time of corona, and I imagine yours feels a little different as well. Outside of the personal and professional changes we've had to make too, there have been a lot of societal and cultural line in the sand moments in a little over a year. Circles we traveled in might feel ill fitting if you know people who denied/called it a plandemic virus when it has killed over 570,000 Americans alone in less than a year...we might also be less likely to sit with people who defended the police involved in George Floyd's murder or with people who supported a Capitol insurrection on January 6. We can't really refer to things that kill people as differences of opinion, you know?

Whenever upheaval or change happens in my life, whether it was prompted by something good or something bad, I spend some time behind the scenes tinkering until the balance is where I want it. While I'm anxious to get back to doing things I love, like girls weekends, I am committed to leaving things that no longer serve me in that other life and holding space for other joys.