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Blogging Circle of Friends prompt - Cabin Fever |
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For me the problem is not cabin fever through this pandemic. I love being home. Hibernating for days is not a hardship for me at all. My husband and son are both home and my husband has a job he can complete remotely. We are all introverts and enjoy alone time. Being together is a positive experience for us and we are blessed with enough space to also have solitary time. I think the dog is the only one with cabin fever. She is used to going to puppy day camp and has not been able to go there in two weeks. Luckily my six-year-old little son can keep her entertained although it can get a little much for his parents! The discomfort comes from the fact that the world is so different. The world feels more dangerous than normal outside the home. I have an anxiety disorder, so the outside world has always been a little dangerous. Yet, that anxiety has always been irrational. This concern does not feel irrational. It feels valid. I was so proud of myself when this first started. I volunteer as a chaplain at a hospital and I was not feeling anxious about this illness. When school closed, the bars and restaurants, and they stopped volunteers from coming to the hospital things started to feel scary. The world is unrecognizable and my normal is being dismantled. Even going to the grocery store, an activity I enjoy, is uncomfortable and abnormal. I entered Fred Meyer on a Saturday and the shelves were bare. There were no paper products, chicken, or ground beef to be found. While I love hibernating, part of me will be glad to have normalcy again. Perhaps we never will. Perhaps I will have to get used to a new normal. And I know I can remake meaning. Yet, that is the hard part. The process of making new meaning is painful. |
| Going to the grocery store has been the reminder for me the world is in disarray. I am an introvert so staying at home for weeks at a time with my family is a good experience. Outside of the news I watch, only periodically to maintain my mental health, I feel safe and secure at home. One Saturday though, I went shopping at a Fred Meyer. I walked into the entryway of the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon and a lone employee was wiping down carts with sanitizing wipes. That moment felt so surreal because this was a time when the store was normally packed with shoppers. It was lonely and barren. Shopping that day felt like grieving – grieving normalcy and security. I imagine our collective experience this lent gives us a small sense of what Jesus’s followers were experiencing after his death. Some of us are struggling more than others through this pandemic and some of us are grieving the loss of loved ones just as the early Christians were grieving Jesus’s death. This lent has felt so different and strange. This is the season of grief for our Lord and here we are experiencing a societal grief. So, this Good Friday, we not only grieve the sin that caused our Lord’s suffering and death, we also grieve what this illness has brought to our communities. We grieve the families who are struggling with shelter in place, health care, grocery and warehouse workers who are risking their lives, children at home for whom school was the only safe place to be, people who are sick and dying alone, and families who are grieving and unable to collectively meet for funerals. This is not an easy place to be and it was not an easy place for early Christians. As we remember our Lord’s death this Good Friday, we also remember that God was with those early Christians through that confusion, grief and turmoil. And She is with us through this confusion, grief, and turmoil. Like a loving Mother, God grieves with us and surrounds us with love and hope. We know how Jesus’s story ends but the ending for the corona virus is unclear. However, we will be able to find new meaning and joy again. Until then, we can turn to God when sadness and fear threaten to overcome us. In Jesus name, Amen |
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