Project Manager
We’ve been in quarantine more than forty days now.
All romanticizing has passed and the reality of this has more than sunk in. For those of us that have been home throughout this time we have to admit that the first seven to ten days almost felt like an extended spring break or mini vacation. That feeling passed fairly quickly. As for me, I needed to find a new normal…
Like any home owner, there are always, ALWAYS, projects that need to be done around your house. Ours is no different. I’m proud to say I’ve knocked quite a few off of my list over the past few weeks. Painting, building, electrical, gardening, cleaning, and remodeling are all things I can claim as completed quarantine projects. Yesterday, I was able to knock out a couple of things I had been working on and then a sense of “heightened reality” sort of hit me. I say sort of because the reality of it all is I know this but hadn’t wrestled with it yet. Moving from house project to house project, while good things, had become a coping mechanism for the season of stress we’ve found ourselves in.
I would think that I, like a lot of others, don’t really want to admit that this is a stressful season. I mean, my wife and I both still have our jobs and we are financially okay. With a few small exceptions we’ve been able to get all that we need/want from the grocery store. We’re having more family time over meals, board games, and movie time. Why should I be stressed? I think to answer that question I may need to write another post so back to my coping through projects. I finished some electrical work that I needed to knock out and as I walked in the back door of our house and said to my wife,
“This isn’t a good pace for me.”
I was enjoying the projects and was really enjoying checking them off of my to do list. (That’s the 8 in me.) I think the reality of it all is that I knew I couldn’t just keep doing projects and that I needed to find something else to do with my mind and my energy. In the form of confession, I’m still wrestling with that fact.
I, like many writers, don’t always write for others to read but to get the things that are inside out of us. This is my struggle and even though we are now beginning to see glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel, this will be my reality for a while longer. How are you coping? What are some things you are wrestling through in this new normal? I think it’s a great reminder for all of us, introverts and extroverts alike, we are apart but in this thing together!
Pray for me as I navigate these waters. Pray for my family as they navigate me. I’m going to keep looking to check projects off my to do list but at a little different pace than before.
To quote Hillsong United,
“I can see the light in the darkness, as the darkness bows to Him.”
I’m going to choose to rest in that today.
Photo by Hunter Haley on Unsplash