One about now.
Day 30 on official lockdown — notes on feelings and expectations.
Things have been strange, I think a lot of us can relate to reflections and notes that everyone has shared over the past few weeks. I feel lucky: incredibly lucky because I am well and my family and friends are well, I get to spend every day with my partner and I have a job (few jobs really) that motivate me and generally speaking, things are going well.
But what about everything else?
I have been experiencing up and downs, mood swings and all sorts of emotions; from feeling completely helpless and little anxious, to feeling positive and ready to move the world. One thing this is teaching me is to slow down, and re-consider everything that is going on around me.
Re-consider: what an amusing word, re- gives it that extra power, alluding to something that we already know but that we have almost forgotten. And consider: considering what we have, what we are experiencing, what we’d change or what we’d keep, what we’d become once this is all over.
I am re-considering myself, and this is something I tend to do a lot, often because, in a way, deep retrospective is part of my own meditation practice, a way to digest my day-to-day life, my values and my relationships. This lockdown is reminding me of old practices and teaching me, once again, to slow down and taste it all in the present moment.
Present: the moment we are living now, not before, not later, now. A reminder to stop planning, to stop trying to figure everything out, to stop expecting and to slow down, once again.
I am trying to live my days fully: I wake up when my own body clock wants to wake up, I eat as much as I feel like eating, if I want to rest, I give myself a rest, if I feel like being productive, I keep going until I feel like I need to stop. And this freedom, this independency, this great feeling of being able to control our time and shape our days, it is empowering and motivating. I knew I dreamt about this before all this begun, and now I know this is what I want.
My hope -today and everyday- is for everyone to feel like they can do anything the want and pursue that thought, dream and hope, without feeling chased or rushed or anxious about the results.
And also, when are we ever going to experience something like this? Make the most of this — follow a dream, start a new project or cut yourself some slack! You deserve it.
If not now, when?
