On Thursday night, I was finally able to get the first of the two required Covid vaccine shots. I will be the first to tell you that I have a fear of needles and so, I try to avoid shots as much as possible. There is something however stronger than my fear of needles that is the risk of reinfection of the Covid virus and the vaccine I believe is the best option available. So, I sat in the line and waited my turn to get the shot. While I did have a two-day headache and some brief chills. I came through it just fine and in just over two weeks, I will be back for round number 2 with the hope it will have less of effect on me.
Driving out of the vaccination area I told myself this is the first step in getting my life back. I have been dealing with Covid-19 since the middle of December when my mother came down with the virus only to get her well and then experience my own brand of Covid. My life has been turned upside down and has felt broken in a million pieces. I didn’t need much coaxing to realize the safest course of action to take has been to limit my public exposure. The only public things I have done is to shop for food, to keep doctor’s visits, made two trips to get my haircut and I have taken less than a handful of drives alone because sometimes you just need to go for a drive to clear your head and to avoid going crazy.
It almost doesn’t seem real to me that there is an opportunity to get back to life. Yet, not as it was because I think we have all been affected by the virus’s impact in some way. No, it will be a new kind of normal and take some getting used to. It takes me back to the summer’s when I would undergo a surgery and be laid up at home for eight to ten weeks and sometimes longer. At first, you are just happy to be recovering at home. Then, you go through the stage of feeling and saying this is boring but, you are kind of committed to the recovery process and you cannot undo what has been done. Soon you start to dream a little as you look out the window. You realize that life does seem to continue and that it does so without you. It’s at that point that you may feel unimportant and maybe not even needed BUT THAT’S NOT TRUE! Your left in this odd place of trying to figure out a way to slot yourself back into the flow of life and that is how it has been for me the past few months.
I’ve realized that I have changed. I have come to realize that over the past few years that I have been unhappy and silently frustrated about the course my life has taken. I’ve remained in a job out of a sense of responsibility and yes, sadly failed to acknowledge the voices that have been telling me for some time that you’re drowning in a pool of unhappiness and anxiety. It took my bout with Covid and the sudden decompression of my life to realize that my belief that I somehow I had a responsibility to the organization were totally a lie and that the unhappiness and my anxiety were not just external voices to be silenced “because you have got a “responsibility” but, were there trying to reach me to say hay stop. How about taking some time to look around you, and hay, take just a moment to listen?
Now that I have stopped and I took a moment to look around and I started to really listen, I’ve been taking all the time “I need” to make sure I am doing what is important to me. I am saying to myself in a few words hay, I matter and what choices I make from this point on matter to me and are mine. Of course, I would be lying if I said I don’t hear those old voices saying you do have a responsibility you know or the voice of anxiety saying don’t let go of this “known thing” for something new and unknown. When I hear those voices now, I want to say to them in a loud and in defiant tone, “I don’t believe your lie. I’ve taken what has been dished out to me and I am still standing. I will be the one who decides from this point on what direction my life goes and grow in confidence of my own voice. Got it! Good!
Thoughts? E-mail: francisearly@francisearly.com
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