COVID is suffocating me
I strap on my N95 mask upon entering the gym to watch my 6-year-old’s basketball game. A few minutes in, I am calm and seated, but still having a hard time catching my breath.
I am suffocating.
I say “no” to my 10-year-old’s tearful request to please let her play at her friend’s house, where Covid has too-recently been for my comfort level.
I am suffocating.
I see my children’s growing dependence on technology in the last two years. I worry about their mental health.
I am suffocating.
I think of all the calculated decisions I’ve had to make during COVID. Sometimes choosing to land on the liberal end of the spectrum, sometimes on the conservative end. I am questioning myself as I go. Should I have done [insert ‘x, y, z’] instead?”. I submit to the decision fatigue.
I am suffocating.
I look at pre-COVID photos of years past stream across my TV when in screen-saver mode. Photos with friends/family, large gatherings, indoor parties, and relationships that have since changed. I long for that innocence again; the freedom that I didn’t know I had.
I am suffocating.
I think of all of those who have died or who have watched loved ones die because of COVID. I think of those living in poverty and in war-torn countries who don’t have the same resources I have at my fingertips. I pause and feel guilty for lamenting about my “first-world problems”. I’m overthinking. Again. It’s exhausting.
I am suffocating.
But then I catch my breath. In and out.
I connect with friends. I talk to my family.
I am breathing.
I see those in the community giving their all. People coming together and talking about their suffocation, too. Leaning on each other, supporting each other, rooting for each other. I see a resiliency that is undeniable. I see the solidarity in which we stand with one another.
I am breathing.
I watch my girls. I see them learning and growing despite the havoc COVID has wreaked. I hug them. I sing and dance with them. I inhale their beautiful free spirits.
I am breathing.
I take a walk and feel the sun beaming through the frigid air, and see bright red berries on holly bushes contrasting against the white snow. I take in the beauty of nature.
I am breathing.
I hold hope for the future. I see the innovators that my children and their generation can and will become. The problems they will solve. The mountains they will climb.
I am breathing.
I eat the vegetables that my body craves, and then I indulge in the warm, gooey brownies I just made with my kids. I drink my water. And coffee. Lots of coffee. And maybe a little wine.
I am breathing.
I inhale, filling my lungs, and then exhale slowly and completely. I repeat. I tell myself that somehow, some way, this too shall pass. I hold space for it all, the good and the bad. I put one foot in front of the other and press on.
