“We are constantly arriving and leaving”

I’ve sat down this week to write this letter, as I do once a month and I’ve noticed some resistance. At first I felt that I was tired (which became an indisputable truth) but once I sat a little longer, I could tell that I’m in this micro transition moment which I don’t know how to quite place it, yet. It was only the other day that a friend of mine got her first vaccine shot and felt emotional about it, most unexpectedly, I started to put a finger on this resistance. I texted her back saying that it made sense that she would feel this way, I said to her: "It seems that we are moving too fast from the uncertainty we were just getting used to”. I’m not at all implying we are done with the pandemic, however the eventual aftermath period has been on my mind a lot lately. Who we’ll be after this? Who we'll be in this transition? I’ve read articles and listened to conversations about how this aftermath could be, the effects of it on our bodies and in our relationships. How will we move on? What friends are we going to see? How will our day-to-day be? Will the changes we integrated in this pandemic era remain? What will our priorities be? Will work continue on zoom? Underneath the practical questions and logistics, if we look deeper we might find some complex feelings about moving on. We’ll find some fear, some hesitation, disassociation.

We were only getting used to living in this “announced” uncertainty (though we always had lived in it but fooled ourselves to think otherwise) and we were making acquaintances with all the weird feelings it provokes, so wrapping our minds around what comes after this seems like a big stretch. The thing about transitions is that moving on when we are still not done with what has happened to us can be difficult. It represents a paradox where we are quite ready to carry on and at the same time still needing to process what has happened. It can show some resistance, agitation and distraction. We have a lot to process from this whole period and most of us are going to do this after the fact, and slowly. So I’m just here to say, if you feel unsettled in this new moment of this season of our lives, it’s alright. If you feel a piece of you, or let’s be honest, many pieces of you have stayed in 2020 or are still processing all of it, let them be there for a moment. Then, when you are ready, gather the pieces together slowly to move forward whole. It’s not an easy task but it’s just something to have some awareness on. As we jump into the next stage of this thing, let us not forget impermanence is not only applied to pandemic times, it’s always a truth. We are the ones who had to be reminded of it, after all, isn’t life just a big transition where we are constantly arriving and leaving?

With love,
Mari