the great corrector

Photo not recent, but conveys 

my current state of mind!

It is the age of Coronavirus and we're all on lockdown to avoid spreading or getting Covid-19. Kinda scary, kinda awesome. DH and I had flown to Florida the day everything really got serious, Friday the 13th. It was kind of serious and known on that Thursday (the 12th), enough where we questioned going on the trip and checked in with my mom and 95 year old grandma what they thought. They said "Come on over!" and since we felt the same, we went. When we got to the airport, it was a ghost town, which was odd for a Friday morning, and we were like, "is this really the right thing to do?" But we got on the plane. By the time we landed, the Indycar race we were going to see was closed to fans, and Disney was talking of shutting down. 

We got to the house and Lysoled our luggage, then got in the shower immediately, and threw all our clothes in the wash. And then it was life as normal. We went out to church and  mom's birthday dinner on Saturday night, and then the race was cancelled entirely. Disney was closed. Beaches started closing, but not before we made it out to Honeymoon one day. We actually had a really great week hanging out with Thomas, learning to stand-up paddleboard on the bay, biking, going out on the boat to an island with beautiful, big shells and sand dollars, swimming, etc. DH and I walked or ran or got *some* kind of activity every day. We had cocktails with grandma, coffee with mom, and happy hours and dinners with brother's family, at either their house or ours. We were all together and it was super nice.

By the end of the week, corona-fear was REAL. All the ski mountains shut down for two weeks. Masses were cancelled. States were going on stay-at-home orders, and travelers were to quarantine themselves for two weeks. We wondered if we should just stay in Florida until it all passed. But Doggy Love was back in CO, and who knows when it would pass, so we decided to come back to CO. We braved the plane, armed with wet-wipes, and sister picked us up from the airport by driving our car out, followed by her girlfriend driving their car, so they wouldn't be in the same vehicle. She opened up the back hatch to reveal she had brought us Lysol and Clorox wipes.

Me and DH doused ourselves and luggage in Lysol, had a Clorox sponge bath and went straight to Costco to stock up. We had already decided we'd tell our employers that we'll be working from home for 2 weeks just to be safe, but both our teams were already working from home. I jumped right back into working way too many hours, but at least I don't have the commute on top of that. I was grateful for the way things are, isolated with my Doggy Love and my Boyfriend, with the human components of the household able to continue working. We've been on walks every day, at a minimum, the dog is THRILLED, for sure! I get 7+ hours of sleep almost every night. I love it. 

But I also know people are really struggling. The mountains are now CLOSED for the season. Restaurants, bars can have no patrons. Stores and businesses are closed, hopefully just for a bit, but possibly for good. Concerts and sports are cancelled or postponed, even the summer Olympics are postponed to 2021. Unemployment claims have skyrocketed.  People are getting very sick, and the death rate is much higher than the flu. Domestic violence is up. Hospital employees don't have enough PPE. It's not all roses, that is for sure. The media is blowing it up as the great disaster. And then I read someone's lovely blog post about a question Bill Gates posed: what is the coronavirus/covid-19 really teaching us? And one of the things they said was that we can think of this as the great disaster, but what if this is the great corrector? What if this is the thing that teaches us to look inward and focus on the things we don't like about ourselves, our life, and actually gives us a moment of breathing room to figure out how to CORRECT these issues?

This pandemic is very well-timed for me personally. I am working too many hours for a job I enjoy (most days), at a company I love working for, for great pay and benefits, but I am giving up my entire life for it. I don't want to do that. I never see my friends, I barely see my spouse and doggy love (outside of working from home this week). I haven't been able to see a way out of this. I have tried discussing it with my boss on three separate instances this past year, but nothing has changed and it has actually gotten progressively worse. So now that I am not commuting, I can use that time to focus on a solution (or solution options) for changing that.

And then the other thing I can really focus on is getting and staying as healthy as possible. I have not used food or alcohol to cope, these past two weeks. I kind of started being very mindful in FL, as I didn't want to gain weight on vacation. I definitely ate and drank a bit more than normal, but I came home to CO only two pounds up, and this week those two pounds are gone. Usually it's a 5-pound gain that takes me a month to reverse, not this time. I also usually binge on sugar the last day I'm there, but I didn't do that this time. Because I figured I'd just be back in May to help my mom with my grandma, so I took the long view and guess what? I didn't feel the need to numb my sad feelings with wine and cookies.

And here me and Mr. Blueberry Pancakes have been housebound in CO for a week, and we love it. While the working-from-home was tough to adjust to initially, I moved my office downstairs away from the kitchen, and have been eating normally with no snacks, having my one drink every night (even though our bar is completely stocked), and getting some kind of exercise in the sun every day. We are cleaning and organizing the house, and it's becoming a really nice place to be in. I love the current situation, I really do. Our house is full of healthy food. I made a cake from scratch last night. I have zero intention of eating the whole thing, and I'm probably going to put half of it in the freezer today. I am using this time to focus on how to live a healthy life and cope with difficult situations in healthy ways. Talking to friends, cleaning and organizing, writing in my journal or here - all of this is helping. I am happy. 

I know everyone is going through some adjustment to this pandemic situation and trying to figure out the "new-and-hopefully-temporary normal", so that helps make it a little easier for me to deal with, overall. But that's the thing, this is a way where all of us can collectively learn how to lean on others or ourselves, and find out what works for us in a healthy sustainable way, and it's OK to fumble through it and mess up because, hey we're all in this together. So it's like society has been given this great pass at overcoming its own social failure - a chance to correct its errors. To say hello to neighbors, to leave encouraging messages in sidewalk chalk, to leave teddy bears in the window for kids to see on their "bear hunts", a chance for families to walk together, to play games together, to help each other out. I am not naive to the fact that domestic violence is currently on the rise, but for the vast majority of our population, this is really proving to be a way for us to show how we can collectively come together and focus on what's important for us. It's not a total disaster. Flu cases are down, pollution levels are significantly lower across the globe - there are silver linings. It's really a weird type of adversity gift. It's like Garth Brook's song The Dance. If this really is a disaster, then this is, in at least some ways, a beautiful disaster. 

I hope you are all staying sane throughout this, and I hope that no matter what your situation is, you are able to find some kind of beauty in this pause. Read a book, do a puzzle, have a lawn chair happy hour with your neighbors on your front lawn, your own balconies or in the hallway of your apartment building. Go for walks and eat healthy food, because heaven forbid you do get sick, get/keep yourself as healthy as possible so you can fight it. Wash your hands, put a bear in the window, call your family and friends. Whatever you need to do to make this work for you, do that, under the guidelines form the CDC and your local state and health officials, of course. Stay well, my friends. I'm off to ride my bike with the love of my life. ;) 

2020 Vision

I went to the Oprah 2020 Vision tour yesterday with a very dear friend of mine. The two themes were how to define and create wellness for you in your own life, and how to set a course so you can manifest your dreams. Both things start with intent. Those who know me know my mantra is "The universe is unfolding exactly as it should." There are no accidents. No chance encounters. No wasted time. We are the architects of our own lives and we can draw plans and make choices to build the life we want, but there is gonna be a wrecking ball here and there or a storm or something to redirect the original intent. And we adapt and move on, one way or another. Life goes on.

We took an assessment to determine which areas of our life may be lacking balance or focus as far as wellness goes. My result was emotional wellness. I think - honestly - that it has taken me a full year to recover from the emotional damage was done in my last job. But I am definitely a stronger and better person, employee, coworker and leader because of that experience. I certainly did not lose the lesson. I think the best way to continue my emotional evolution is to create boundaries for myself around my current job, do a sun salutation each morning, and write down my three gratitudes every night. I have also been using my commute as quiet time to set my daily intentions for what I want to accomplish as I head in, and to reflect on what went well (for progress) or how to overcome the challenges as I go home. I know I am not moving enough overall, lately - though I think at this point in my life with a major career change, the exercise piece is the one that can be out of balance. I am maintaining my weight, I am not stress eating or drinking, and I can still ski down pretty much anything I want, so for now that is enough.

As far as what my intent is, they asked to come up with a word. My word is probably "Flow" or "Ride" - just go with it. I know I am headed toward my ultimate goal - a great mountain place that everyone can come hang out in. That is coming. We are on our way there. Work is tough, but it is also carrying us swiftly downstream toward that goal. And as Oprah says, "Do what you have to do so you can do what you WANT to do." That's where I am, that's where we are, we're in the flow. I'm just going to ride the wave, or the current and enjoy.