The Abyss We Live With
This pandemic year has been mentally exhausting. Given the number of reports and news articles about our mental wellness, I know I am not alone with my personal exhaustion. We are seeking finite and concrete assurances that we have escaped from this virus. There are no guarantees; just a reliance on our own collective good behavior.
We are exhausted.
As vaccines help us avoid death, hospitalizations and the more critical parts of COVID, we are being told it is possible to live with fewer health protocols . Those habits that had become a norm for living with a highly contagious, deadly virus are changing as scientists fine-tune transmission data and as those miraculous vaccines get into more arms. We are being trusted to monitor our own risks by becoming fully vaccinated and avoiding obvious situations that might allow the virus to rebound and surge again.
And once again, I - and most likely you, too - are hesitant to trust this situation.
The great scientist and author, Oliver Sacks, when faced with his own mortality, wrote about the very choice we have before us now. We must choose how we will live so that we can begin to resume those activities that give us enjoyment, that feed our souls, and keep us from harming our fellow travelers on this Earth.
“It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me.”
Will we choose to carefully, slowly, and purposefully begin to re-enter our pre-COVID lives? Will we take advantage of offered vaccines? Will we be patient about those things that may not yet be safe?
We have been looking into the abyss, and now it is time to step away from the edge. How we do that, is under our control.