Resolved to Mindfully Flourish

 Life seems normal, and then it doesn't. 

Car noise is dramatically reduced. I like that, but it's not normal.

Spring prolifically bursts forth. I love that, but I can't go to parks and view the beauty. Not normal.

The phone barely rings, people are less visible. Solitude is precious, I like it. But it's not normal.

We cook all our meals at home. Healthy, delicious, but it's not normal to be banned from restaurants.

Grocery shopping requires distancing, masks, paranoia really. It used to be a pleasant break in my day to go shopping, to wander the aisles, peruse the products and produce. Now, it's a mad dash in and out with a concise grocery list in hand. It's not normal.

The mail comes and we have to think about what we touch after we bring it in, we must immediately wash our hands, set the papers and packages aside as if they are time bombs, toxic, crawling with deadly creatures, which they very well might be. This is very abnormal, and very disconcerting.

I can't hug my children, my granddaughter, my friends. This is crushingly not normal.

Things seem normal, until they don't.

To say it is unsettling tries to describe the indescribable. 

Everything feels.....off. Out of kilter. 

We have little control. The virus has much control. The virus calls the shots. The virus - the invisible virus - terrorizes us, silently, psychologically, emotionally. It toys with our spirits, our minds, our roles and purpose. Mercilessly. Ruthlessly. Flamboyantly. Only in the sound of its gasping victims and the hissing, clacking rhythm of the ventilators does it speak to us of its power, its intent: to use us up until we die. To kill us. 

Thankfully, our own invisible immune systems fight battles victoriously, for most of us.

Still, we don't know which way it will be for each one of us. Which will we be in the end?

Uninfected and vulnerable for the next wave?

Infected and survived and thus immune?

Infected and killed?

The choice is in God's hands. And He has good reasons for it all.

Still, it is an abnormal world we now inhabit and it suffocates.

I feel immeasurable sadness.

Still, I have a choice in how I pass through this.

I could dance along the rim of self-pity's abyss - tempting, pointless.

I could languish helplessly in the middle of the brutal tug-of-war between social extremes of deepest tragedy and unparalleled acts of selflessness and beauty - exhausting.

I could ostrich my genuine reactions, masking them behind flimsy platitudes, supercilious spouting, or empty-calorie activities - untenable, unhelpful, unkind.

I could conscientiously face the disruption of normal life, look it squarely in its menacing face, grasp tender compassion in one hand, creative determination in the other, review my beliefs, inventory my haves and have-nots, summon truth, beauty, and simplicity, then, map a new purposeful path to walk for however long the abnormal is normal - mindful flourishing. 

The choice is entirely my own - I choose mindful flourishing.