retrospection
We came to a pandemic.
As an enneagram six, I pondered all the worst case scenarios and plotted statistics into my autoimmune survival plan. I stocked up, sheltered in, ready for the long haul. Busy days with long to-do lists to check off make it easier to avoid reflection. Easier to avoid digging below the superficial to reflect on what journeys we’ve taken to come to this place-this place of dwell for the long haul of pandemic. The long haul can have its own unknowns within the nooks and crannies of our days-unknowns that require us to dig deep and reflect.
This isn’t 1918.
There are enough creature comforts to satisfy here.
But, now what? This isn’t 1918. There are enough creature comforts to satisfy here. What do I do month after month waiting for flattened curves and viral droplets to filter through our breath? My papaw used to say that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” so I resolved to stay as busy as possible.
Busy enough to try to forget the world was on fire.
Busy enough to try to forget my caregiver heart.
Busy enough to keep children informed without splitting their life into a before and after sideshow.
Busy enough to decide to organize my bedroom closet-a task placed on the back burner since we moved here late last year.
The closet houses clothes with multiple hip sizes(I’m convinced I’ll fit into my favorite brown dress again), one pair of heeled shoes(they go perfect with the aforementioned dress), and stacks of journals. I wondered if I should depart with these journals, maybe tear out certain pages(looking at you, years 2010-13), white out to erase the brutally honest parts for fear that future generations would judge me by them, or maybe I should just leave it all there?
I thought about all the possibilities.
Would they judge the expanse of my entire lifetime by the fractured valleys or would they be able to see the grace that I felt? If I only share the highlight reels, what legacy am I leaving behind? Would they be able to understand the real me?
I decided to leave them how they were-flawed, real, trialed and triumphed, elated and despaired.
Deleting the hard days, the days that boxing the sky was my only fight, nights spent pacing in anxious anger? Those were the days that made me. They shouldn’t be polished pretty. That’s isn’t the goal-healing is.
Only allowing the highlight reels to enter the space we share with others gives others a one dimensional view of the life we’ve lived and removes the benefit of seeing how grace has carried us through.
We are so much more.
Walking through our broken fractures to the cross where we are made whole? That’s our story we were created to share.
