“I feel like a yo-yo right now“. These are the exact words I have used to describe how I was doing when texting with a friend. Sadly pandemic life is getting harder not easier with time. For one we are all emotionally and mentally fatigued. We’ve been at this approximately five months now. Not only are we dealing with pandemic fatigue we are faced with polarizing debates. Politics, race, even handling of the pandemic and reopening decisions are causing massive debates.
For most of this time, our household has been blessed with the ability to focus on living well today. Taking one day, one week at a time. What are we doing this week? What are we doing today? While in the background there are still tabs open that you know eventually need to be addressed they haven’t been all-consuming. Until they were. You see as things began to reopen new kinds of decisions needed to be made. Worse yet as we begin to look at the plans for fall we are now being asked to make decisions we have no idea how to make.
If you are a parent you are potentially faced with the realities of choices about what and how your children will learn this fall. Maybe your school district is giving you options you have to pick from. Or maybe there is only one option but you’re not sure it’s a good one and need to look at other options you’ve never considered before. If you are an educator or work within the school district you are now faced with the pressure of what returning to work will look like. For many whose jobs can not be done remotely the need financially to return to work may loom heavily, where your concern about physical health also weighs you down.
The lack of consistency in advice or direction from leaders, the difference in opinions, from even our friends and family. The constant stream of social media has me feeling like a yo-yo. Just when I start to feel like “we’ve got this” something or someone pops up with new or differing opinions. Before I know it I’ve fallen back down the string, losing confidence in my previously thought out decisions.
This past Sunday Pastor Nate spoke about Lament. And within that, he spoke about how grief and hope can co-exist. “You do not have to choose between grief and hope, you can live with both.” As I was reflecting on his sermon from Sunday I thought of my yo-yo analogy. Isn’t that what my yo-yo is describing? One moment I am in a place of hope and seeing potential, then suddenly I find myself free-falling into grief. Sliding up and down the string. One end reflects hope the other grief.
You do not have to choose between grief and hope,
Nate Rovenstein
you can live with both.
We do not have to carry one emotion at a time. In this season we are currently living there is a world of possible emotions one could be feeling. Sometimes the flood gates open and they pour out like a storm, unable to distinguish one drop from another. Other times we can feel the yo-yo effect. One moment we are at the top, full of hope. The next we have fallen down the string and are weeping at the bottom.
Once again we find ourselves back at this place where maybe we need to allow ourselves to cry, to grieve to lament. To acknowledge again or maybe for the first time how much we have all lost and continue to lose in this pandemic life.
How do we possibly make choices when the choices before us are equally negative? How do you choose between being ok financially or feeling safe physically? How do you choose between physical health and mental health? Because let’s face it, this is where many of us find ourselves right now. At the crossroads of impossible to make chooses.
A few things we are attempting to practice in our home these days.
Remember there is no one right answer, rather we have to decide what we feel at the moment is best for our family. Simply because it is the popular answer does not make it our best answer. As Emily P Freeman would ask, “what is your next right thing?”
Try to remind yourself that fear is not the same as being smart. We need to be smart about our decisions, acknowledge the fear but fear doesn’t get to drive. Nothing is guaranteed so maybe we can open up our bubble a little more, making smart choices as we do so.
Stay informed but not oversaturated. It’s important to stay informed and we don’t want to live in a bubble of ignorance. Yet at the same time, we can not allow media and ever-changing information to over saturate us.
Release what you can not control. As a family that believes in God, we also know that at the end of the day our God is bigger than all this. It does not mean we can simply throw our hands up and be careless in our decision making. But it does mean we can trust that He is with us as we walk this journey and we are not alone.
Grief, Lament, Hope, Possibilities….these are two sides of the yo-yo string. The yo-yo string where many of us happen to find ourselves traveling these days. As we allow ourselves to grieve and lament properly only then do we begin to see ourselves moving closer to hope and new possibilities. Yet moving towards hope isn’t an arrival and I’m done kind of thing. Life happens and we find ourselves sliding a little bit up or down on that yo-yo string. And that’s ok. Recognizing the yo-yo effect for what it is, helps me to recognize I wouldn’t always live in a bubble of hope, there are times I need to lament, to grieve, to cry. Yet it also reminds me that I don’t have to stay in that grief. There is always something to hope for.
