I wrote some extraordinarily bad sentences this week. Worse, I wrote them and then I unwrote them and then I rewrote them and then I moved them to untitled documents where they would go to die a slow death.
This kind of pulsating behavior, I told myself, was understandable of a pandemic. But what of after a pandemic? What if I still couldn’t produce a cohesive paragraph or reply to a text the same day it was received or commit to anything after 5 o’clock in the evening? When would it stop being okay to tell myself it was okay?
I overheard my neighbor call it the COVID-15. Like the so-called Freshman 15, it’s the feeling that you’ve packed on the pounds, real or metaphorical, during this uncertain transition. Maybe it felt good to get softer. Or maybe it felt more greasy than that. Either way, maybe it feels like the weight is weighing you down. Like it’s going to be a long road to lighter. Maybe you’re afraid that you’ve lost your ability to flex an old muscle.
But you haven’t.
What to do still lives in you.
Like riding a bike—when you’re ready, but not before you’re ready—
Muscle memory will meet motivation.
And you will soar.
I know this because I got on a bike last night. Another neighbor, a bright and unabashed five-year old, has been doing circles up and down our block all week. I was shocked when I learned she only just learned. She careened by parked cars. She made sharp turns in open intersections. She chatted easily with older kids who rode alongside her like bodyguards. When I saw her cruise by, feet up on the crossbar, I dropped my jaw in awe. I wanted some of that sauce.
Inspired, our crew got some bikes out of the basement last night and set out for an after-dinner ride through the neighborhood. It was not glamorous. Two of our three kiddos do not know how to ride a bike yet and Rush and I have, so far, proved ourselves to be insufferable teachers. (I offered to outsource the lessons to the five-year old’s mom but, so far, no takers.) Someone fell. Someone cried. Someone thought they were being helpful by asking “What’s your goal here?” And someone was wrong.
After all the someone’s were feeling a little less salty, it was my turn to ride. I hopped on one of the unused bikes and was surprised how little effort it took to move. Even though it wasn’t my bike, I knew bikes. My hands knew where to rest on the handlebars, and my legs knew how to pump the pedals. They knew so well that when I was the first to make it home, I turned around. I pushed uphill again just to meet my strength. I flew downhill again just to feel my soar.
Mental health experts say it’s the same with our mindset muscles. Old patterns persist under the surface. We can tap into them. New patterns can be built. If we lean into them. We are not stuck in this moment. Or as Radical Wellness Collaborative’s Erin Baute sums it up, “Emotion creates motion and motion creates change.”
Listen. I am nowhere near ready to get back to normal, or the new normal, or whatever uncertain future awaits us, as it has always awaited us. There will likely be no goal-setting or goal-meeting or even goal-asking inquiries for at least another month, maybe more, maybe four.
But I am ready to believe that, by the grace of God, I’m capable.
And I’m becoming capable by flexing my capacity.
I agree to an evening of neighborhood Yahtzee—brackets, face-off, front porch-style. I send a text that says, I’m having trouble externalizing my insides but you matter. I write sixty-three sentences, in journals and on laptops and even in that sad phone app, until I find one, maybe four, worth keeping.
XO,Erin
P.S. It will never stop being okay to not be okay.
Want more tools for practicing purpose?
Want to feel more hopeful? Pledge all or part of your stimulus check to undocumented immigrants left out of the federal relief package.
Want to feel less afraid? Listen to the newest Everything Happens interview with “uncertainty specialist” and palliative care doctor Sunita Puri, author of the exquisite new memoir That Good Night.
Want to feel more connected? Buy one of Flourish Market’s new self-care kits for yourself or a friend that includes a copy of my book, Lessons in Belonging! What better time than now to remember that a feeling of belonging is not somewhere “out there” but “baked-in” to our soul sauce.
