Living With Uncertainty

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Like many (most? all?) of you, I’m struggling right now.

As a teacher, I’m used to a certain rhythm of the school year. And by now, I should be excited for summer, exhausted by the demands of the end of the school year and putting energy into finalizing plans for the next school year.

Instead, I’m sad about not being able to say goodbye in person, more blah than exhausted and the next school year is simply one big question mark.

I find myself increasingly distressed by the unknown of what’s coming. I keep reflecting back on the comfort (unappreciated at the time) of past years, when plans were in place and I could find peace in the surety of what was around the next corner.

But then I catch myself. Because those plans of past years were only certainties because I’m viewing them from the perspective of the future, where the scheduled events were carried out with only relatively small adjustments.

The truth is that uncertainty is always present, we simply hide it away beneath a veneer of imagined control, applied so that we don’t have to face the discomfort of admitting that we don’t have the ultimate say in what happens.

This year is no more or less uncertain than any other time. The outcomes are always in limbo and only seem inevitable once they occur.

Of course, the unknowns are more pronounced right now, like magma bubbling to the surface after a seismic event. It’s difficult to imagine what next week will look like, much less next month or next year. We are all being forced to drop our plans. In reaction, we’re grasping to control what we can – setting rules and boundaries for our families, calling out those who aren’t socially distancing the way we are and arguing against the ways our governments are handling the outbreak and the economic fallout.

It certainly FEELS different.

Because we become so accustomed to life unfolding in relatively predictable ways. And it’s only when it breaks open that we realize how that predictably is a story we tell ourselves so that we can sleep at night.

I keep thinking back to my summer 11 years ago. In a span of hours, I went from believing that I would never be apart from my then-husband to learning that everything we had together was a lie. Upon the discovery, I felt like I was in free fall, unable to trust anything. But in reality, the revelation of the duplicitous life wasn’t anything new, it simply uncovered what had always been there. I fought against that unknown for a time, craving the feeling of solid ground beneath my feet again. Yet it is was only when I stopped struggling to control every outcome that I was able to relax.

The lesson in all of this isn’t going to be found in finding a new way to try to control life. It’s in learning how to find acceptance that there is little outside ourselves that we can control and finding peace regardless.

Most days, I’m still struggling against this. But I’m finding moments when I can simply be in – and appreciate- today without undo concern for tomorrow.

Hope you all are well and are able to find your moments of peace.

This is hard. And also, in the words of Glennon Doyle, “We can do hard things.”

Lisa

 

Life is Not a Waiting Room

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Feels Like I’ve Been Here Before

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I keep getting the strange sense of deja vu.

Feeling like I’ve been here before.

Which is crazy on the surface of things. After all, this is a global pandemic, the likes of which have not been seen for 100 years.

None of us have been here before.

Yet, for those of us who have been through one or more of those life-altering moments – the discovery of infidelity, abandonment, sudden and profound loss – this may feel strangely familiar. After all, we know what it’s like to wake one morning to discover that the world we knew, the world which we trusted to ground us, no longer exists.

We are familiar with the grief that sneaks up and tugs at our guts when we’re not paying attention. And we are no longer surprised when we grieve the small things as much as the big ones.

We’ve experienced that strange sense of disbelief, of thinking that somehow this is all just a tragic mistake and that the reality we knew simply needs to be recovered.

We know the fear that comes with the uncertainty and the deep craving to return to a sense of safety. And we know that over time the belief things will return to normal is replaced with an acceptance that a sense of peace only comes once we’ve adapted to the new situation.

We’ve lived through that life turned upside-down, where the normally innocuous things have become threats hidden around every corner.

We’ve endured those long nights wishing things could be different before we dry our tears and pledge to focus on what we can control. And we learn both how small our influence is and also how powerful it can be.

We’ve tried to run away from our pain in the hope that we can distract our way out of it only to find that it cannot be outrun.

We’ve been through those moments of utter defeat when we feel like we’re not strong enough to get through this, only somehow we manage to make it through that day. And then the next.

This may be new. You haven’t been through this challenge yet.

But you’ve made it through others.

You know what to do.

 

When You Can No Longer Rely on Distractions

Posted on by stilllearning2b

It’s my first day of spring break.

And I’m struggling.

For the other 18 years of my teaching career, I reached spring break both exhausted and relieved, ready for a break from the relentless and overly-structured schedule of teaching.

But this year?

I’m panicky, only now realizing how much I’ve relied on the need to be online and responsive to my students all day to keep me focused and how much the process of reinventing lessons for the digital realm has kept me occupied.

So now, with the next 9 days stretching out before me with no real purpose and no defined structure, I’m feeling a little crazy. A little unmoored. And a lot anxious.

We all have our preferred form of distraction, that thing we turn to in an excuse to avoid facing that which scares us. Many of us tell ourselves stories about our distractions, convincing ourselves and others that it needs attention, while fervently denying that we’re also trying to escape facing down that which scares us.

Like many of you I’m sure, being busy is my favored distraction. I find a strange comfort in my to-do lists that dictate my days. When I’m on the move, I don’t have too much to pause and just be with my thoughts and my feelings. And when I schedule in those times for mindfulness and reflection, I like knowing that there is a limited amount of time for stillness. I only have to “be” for so long.

Even with the current constraints, I could still manufacture busyness. I could create a rigid and demanding schedule to practice coding or work on writing. I could find some all-consuming household project to eat up all my daytime hours. I could escape for hours on end into books, barely taking the time to look from the page.

Yet even though those things call to me, they don’t quite feel right.

I’m panicky.

Reality is setting in.

And I think I just need to learn to be okay with it.

 

A Note to My Readers

Posted on by stilllearning2b

It’s been a surreal day, as I’m sure it’s been for many of you.

Instead of the planned professional development I was supposed to present, I spent the morning packing up my classroom, preparing online lessons and messaging students about classes for the upcoming week. It felt like preparing for summer break but without the excitement.

I stopped at the grocery store on my way home. I’ve been doing my normal Saturday trips, so the pantry was pretty empty.

Of course, so were the store shelves.

It was busy, but not chaotic. A young mom stopped me in the parking lot as I was returning my cart.

“Excuse me. How is it in there?” she asked, looking concerned. “Am I safe bringing in my kids?”

My heart broke. How sad that she worried for her kids’ safety in her own neighborhood.

But I get it.

It’s a surreal day.

My heart broke once again when I glanced at my blog stats and saw, that even while the world goes into a virus-enforced hibernation, people were still turning to Google with their pleas about unwanted divorce, narcissistic exes and experiencing loneliness after divorce.

But of course they are.

Because that’s the most surreal thing about crises – whether they be personal or global – life doesn’t wait.

I’m not sure how much I’ll be posting over the next couple weeks. I should have more time, but I’m not sure I’ll have the right headspace.

Meanwhile, please know I’m thinking of those of you navigating a divorce and this at the same time. I’m with those of you who are alone and missing your former partner now more than ever. My heart goes out to those of you forced to be in the same space with a partner that has been recently discovered to be unfaithful or is being cruel or distant.

It’s hard when crises overlap. You often don’t have bandwidth for both and right now, you may find that others are too overwhelmed with their own stuff to make space for you.

But you’re not alone.

There are wonderful and supportive and welcoming online communities that build each other up every day. Now more than ever is a great time to find your online tribe.

 

I hope that your family stays safe, your children don’t drive you too crazy and your toilet-paper holders remain full.

 

 

It’s a surreal day.

But it’s only a day.

Tomorrow is a new one.