'I know you are strong and capable. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need some gentleness and compassion right now, too.' How to stay connected if you're living alone during a time of social distancing and isolation:
Every day I hear from friends who are struggling with their new homeschooling jobs, or who want nothing more than an hour to themselves away from kids’ hands and words. Or they’re making funny remarks about needing social distance from their suddenly ever-present husbands or roommates.
Last week, I didn’t sleep much. Every night I was awake by 4 a.m., churning through all the what-ifs. Over Zoom and Facebook and phone calls, I talked about these things with friends and family. Many of their anxieties match my own: overwhelming fears about things we can’t control – our families getting sick, our country and the world wrestling with interconnected economies and fates. In the face of all that, I try to swallow my fears about myself. They feel small and selfish.
After so many days in this empty house, though, those freedoms feel incomplete. It turns out that enjoying solitude relies on the other side of the coin: in-person contact. Enjoying the freedom of answering only to myself requires the opposite to be present as well – it requires the connection and exchange of being annoyed at my band during practice, or pinging ideas off my coworkers at the office, or hashing through writing work face-to-face with my friends.
So there it is. I’m lonely, I’m scared, and I accept that these are natural. These things don’t make me weak or selfish, they just make me human and alive. This week, I’m trying to look forward from there . I’m asking myself – How can I take what I love about living alone, and translate it to a world of only remote interactions? What would it mean to be family, teacher, and companion to myself? I think maybe it’s this:I know you are strong and capable.
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