The gift of space and opportunity

During this time that I am home—indeed, when we are under orders to stay home—I could look at the forced shutdowns of business and work in a number of ways. But the only way I’m choosing to look at it is as an opportunity.

I know I could drown in fear.

But I don’t want to.

So these are things that are going through my mind.

TIME: Now is the time I can focus on creating the days I want. Because I have absolute freedom to do so. So I stay home. So what? I’m an introvert and like being inside, although I do find that I need to go outside and breathe fresh air daily.

I’m trying to keep the rhythm of my pre-COVID19 days, but that’s just because I like the rhythm and it works for me. I get dressed like I’m going for work, even though my commute is literally fifteen feet from bed to laptop. I keep work hours. But I also take the time to listen to my child, who is doing a coding project, or to stand and stretch. We went out in the spa last night and watched the sunset. My daughter asked if we could have a barbeque and homemade ice cream on July 4, and I asked, why can’t we do it now? So while we are homebound, we are not bound by our imagination or activities here.

ACTIVITIES: Besides the work from home aspect, I’m spending a lot of time writing, but being at home has special benefits with my family. My daughter and I are doing a workout every other day in the front yard. My children planted a garden. My son helped my husband on the tractor today. These activities remind me of a simpler time. Of summer and of being a kid. Again, opportunities created that I wouldn’t have without these stay at home orders.

INFORMATION: I’m choosing to not look too much at the news. I don’t do it too much anyway, but I’ve found that it doesn’t help me too much to be entertained by bad things that happen to other people. Perhaps that’s a cynical view of the news—and there’s certainly more than bad news that gets reported—but news stations thrive on ratings, which mean they are entertainment. And they are overwhelmingly focused on bad to horrific things that happen. The byproduct of me watching these things as a very sensitive person is I get scared. Since I don’t want to live my life in fear, I’ve stopped watching. Whatever I need to know, I’ll generally find out one way or another—usually Twitter highlights does the trick.

FREEDOM FROM FEAR: I frequently think of the Norman Rockwell painting of a family tucking in children during World War II, with the horrible newspaper headlines tucked away so the children don’t know about it. Not only do I want to keep my children from fear, but I want to keep myself and everyone else from fear. Again, I’m not talking willful ignorance, but rather cultivating a sense of safety by not wallowing in bad news and by focusing on what we can do. We’re certainly minimizing our risk by staying home and only going out for certain things like food or prescriptions. But besides taking sensible precautions, I’m trying to keep anxiety and fear at bay by paying attention to everything else.

WHAT IS HELPFUL: Deciding this is an opportunity and figuring out how I can make the most of it. How I can choose to face each day as an opportunity. That I can focus on what I can create. And spread as much happiness and joy as possible.

I hope you are staying healthy and happy and sane with your families and that you take this opportunity to create your own beautiful life as well. And I am grateful to those in the medical and science and healthcare professions, who are making the whole world safer and healthier for us all.