Our morning journaling habit didn’t write out a pandemic.
Thoughtful after-work routines didn’t know dismantling until it hit them square in the face. Folding our little underwears in the shape of burritos didn’t prepare us for how our days would blur so seamlessly between showers. Quirky decisions to stay home and post about it online didn’t prepare us to stay at home, under governor’s orders, while our friends and neighbors are irreparably hurting.
Every intention we set by candlelight has gone up in flames, like the world around it. No matter how slow or how fast we were going in the early months of the year, we’ve all been saddled with something extraordinary. It’s almost as if the world saw our delicate human ways and decided it’s time to put some hair on their chests.
Now here we are, chests covered in hair, and still stumbling. Each new day rises with words and numbers worse than the ones before it. Everything is viral in the worst way. And we can’t even look on the bright side because we keep forgetting to go out into the sun.
What I’m saying is this: this is not the same as slow living. This is stunted living at a pace that’s been demanded of us. Where you find delight in this time, find delight. Hold it because it is precious. And where you find heaviness in this time, find heaviness. Hold it, too, because it is precious. It’s precisely that weight that will keep us from running to each other, arms outstretched, desperate for touch and sloppy kisses—we must wait.
This is a living that depends on a pause, so that someday, it can start up again.
Next Steps: Drink a glass of water, step out into the sunshine, and provide some delight for someone else today.
Slow living didn’t prepare us for this