My Option B

As much as I try to put a positive spin on the posts I write, the truth is, I am grieving. I am in pain. I do not like anything about what I am going through. You may be feeling the same way about the pandemic. I am feeling this way about the pandemic and my separation.

This was not my choice. I should not (in my head) be here, living alone in an apartment, picking up my children from the house that was my home for 11 years. Meanwhile my wife and my children continue on with their lives in our home without me. They enjoy time in the backyard while I must go to a park to spend time outdoors. They enjoy time together every day. My home has gone from being a place of safety to a place I dread going because I know I will leave feeling sad and broken. This was not my choice.

The pandemic was not our choice. None of us chose to be told to self-isolate. We did not choose to change the way we do everything from work to shop. We did not choose to have to stay away from family and friends. We certainly did not choose to have to face losses without them. This was not our choice.

This is not option A.

So what do we do about that? When we do not have the choice to make our world what we want it to be, we actually do have a choice. We can choose Option B. We can face the pain and the sadness and the uncertainty and we can find a way through it. We can recognize that the world we know, whether through pandemic, or relationship breakdown, or loss of any kind, will not be the same as it was. It may not be the way we imagined our lives would be.

We may never get back what we had to give up. But we can rebuild a life of purpose and meaning. We can be resilient and learn to live a new kind of life. It will not be the same. It may have parts that, quite frankly, suck. But if we embrace the suck now, we can get to the other side and maybe find a life that is more like what our heart deeply desires than we ever knew possible.

So, yes, right now I am sitting in the suck. Today I do not feel like giving an optimistic message of how we will get through this. Today, my message is simply that sometimes we have to sit in the suck. We have to acknowledge how much the situation we are in feels awful. And then, when we are ready, we can get out of there and hose ourselves off and start moving toward something good. It won’t be option A. But maybe option B will be okay too.

Friends, stay healthy. Stay safe. Reach out. Be well.