We - here in the UP - are just over 2 months into Social Distancing, and learning about a new virus, and the ways it has affected our world.
It is new.
We have never been here before.
We are not good with new.
We typically believe we know the future, based on the past.
However, the future is just a guess.
Perhaps an educated guess, but still a guess.
We can't know much, when something is new.
We are being asked to live in the space of uncertainty.
Many of us act like we have never been here before.
Yet, we all live in uncertainty, we just don't want to acknowledge it.
If we don't look at how uncertain our lives are, we can feel it is steadier than it is.
The only thing certain, IS uncertainty.
Some of us, were shaken out of our certainty, when we faced something that arrived in our worlds, unplanned, unseen, and uncontrollable.
We quickly learned, that stuff happens, and our only control is how we engage with it.
We don't have to like it, but we have to dance with it, regardless.
I learned that no matter how much control you think you have in your life, it is all a facade.
We are actually swinging pretty freely in the land of uncertainty.
For the most part we are guessing as we go.
Hoping that if we make the right choice today, we control tomorrow.
But truly, where does our control really lie?
What do we control?
Giving up control and relaxing into uncertainty, truly is a gift of living life well.
Or, perhaps of being burned really bad, when you thought you had your future all planned, and then your world turned upside down.
The uncertainty that goes with this pandemic, has me practicing uncertainty and being okay.
We can each use our words and actions to engage with it - live, while living in a pandemic.
We each get to decide to take things more cautiously or disregard most measures.
There may be real consequences.
What parts are you willing to gamble with?
I am unwilling to gamble with an outcome that could be deadly.
It isn't fear as much as I respect the nature of the virus.
The virus itself does what it does.
We are still learning about its nature.
There is more we don't know, than know.
In my world, where I am still working, and actually working harder than before, I can only social distance so much - at work.
After hours, I am maintaining a pretty low profile.
Until more is known, until we can get more history with this virus, I am treating it like a stranger, and keeping my distance.
We will begin to learn more and more, as many are dropping the social distance stance.
Time will gather facts.
We will become less uncertain.
Each of us will have our history with it.
And, as we look back what will each of us regret?
The moments we missed,
or the ones we wished we had?
The history of Covid 19 is being written while we are living through this pandemic. Each of us are part of its history. Years from now we will get to look back and the parts we played in these moments of uncertainty.
I have been in an uncertain play before. And, each time a choice was being asked of me, I always chose one that I could live with, and one that I could explain to my children with a restful conscience. Often the choices I had to make, they were the hardest to walk.
As each day passes, more info is being gathered, we are moving forward with the virus, uncertainty will grow into certainty in hindsight.
Again, we will all stand on one side of the virus debate. The followers of the recommendations, and those who wanted their liberty of disregarding them.
There will be the history of the virus for sure, but there will also be our own histories.
We truly write today, what will become our past tomorrow.
Living out our legacy.
