So, I had a conversation yesterday about how much I wish I could be holed up with Mike during this pandemic’s quarantine because it wouldn’t seem nearly so bad. Well, it wasn’t actually a real conversation, but it was a texting one. I read a post from one of my friends who is married, about how she was kind of going crazy these days, feeling all shut in. She thought that this social isolation must be how it feels to be in the nursing home and have no one come to see you. She was just missing people. She was just tired of the same old stuff day after day. I completely understood what she meant.
But, it struck a sensitive nerve of mine that’s been hurting even more since this quarantine of the 2020 Pandemic became a part of our lives. Everyone is being affected in some way by this unprecedented time of our lives.
But, here’s the jab. I already feel like I have been living in my own real social isolation for almost 4 years now. The biggest difference right now is that there isn’t any place I can go and feel completely safe to get relief from being alone. The stores are closed. The restaurants are closed. The parks are closed. The churches are closed. Many of us can’t see our family right now.
Those are all places where people who live alone, like me, go to distract themselves from the silent walls at home. That has been my new normal since Mike died. I often just go some place when the silence at home becomes too heavy.
I know the craziness so well. Any person living totally alone knows it at least part of the time. A widow knows it all of the time. In all honesty, it really seems to follow us even when we go somewhere. But, if we can meet someone to talk to, to eat with, to pray with, to laugh with, to shop with, to go to a show with, just anything to distract us from our loss and loneliness when it’s too heavy to bear, then we go!
Except in this pandemic’s quarantine, we can’t do any of those things. Oh, the added craziness to what we already had! Every single widow living totally alone gets what I’m writing about!
But, rather than making a public comment to my friend, I sent her a private text. I told her my perspective on social isolation now that I’m alone. I reminded her that it wasn’t just the nursing home residents who feel that way, but anyone who lives all by themselves without anyone to hug them or to talk to! I hoped that sharing my perspective on how good her life looks, would maybe help her to appreciate her life more. I guess I reminded her to just enjoy sharing life holed up at home with that wonderful husband of hers!
It’s the little things like that innocent post of a friend sharing her frustration over life not being normal, that seem to trigger the reality and enormity of grief and the effects of loss over and over.
What is my new normal? How am I supposed to live my life now? Where do I look? Who do I look for? What should I do? What should take my time? Who should I give my time to? Who needs it the most? What should I be concerned enough about to be passionate about it? What is the most pressing thing that needs to be done?
Normal has become doing whatever needs to be done that day. If it doesn’t need it, it’s easy to shove it back. But, praying to keep my priorities straight, I’ve tried to do what truly needs to be done.
I still try to do things with and for the people who I love the most in this world now. They are also the ones who love me the most. My family means the world to me. They are still my biggest reasons to get up and to enjoy living life each day in this new normal for me. They are the ones who will truly miss me when I leave this world some day. You learn that fact when you lose someone who was a vital part of you.
I am really working on not saying “never or forever” when it comes to talking about the rest of my new life now. They can rarely be used in talking about this life anyway. Life is continually changing. Life is constantly changing. But Love and Eternity are forever.
Life is a fragile and precious thing. Normal is just this very moment that our Sovereign God gives us to breathe and live for Him. It is truly a gift.
Normal is realizing that He always has been there. He always has been here. He’s always loved me regardless of my circumstances. He holds my past. He’s holding me now. He’s always known my future that’s still out there.
He still knows what normal should be for me. And for you.
