Let’s keep rowing!

Many times during our journey with Joyce’s cancer, I asked the question, “how did we get here.” How did our lives flip upside down so quickly?

How would our lives look after we got through her illness? Then the questions changed from “we” to “I.”  What real changes do I need to get ready for after this ends? How, then, will I live?  I imagine most of you have asked these same questions and more. After all, we’re all in the same boat.

Well, here we are again. With all the disruptions in the world, I find myself asking the same questions. How did we get here? How will my world change yet again? What will my new normal be when I’m still figuring out my old new normal?  Same questions, same answers. Once again, none of us knows how or why we got here, but here we are. Face masks, hand sanitizers, and toilet paper are treasured commodities. Oil has no value. Go figure. We’re all in the same boat now. Let’s keep rowing.

The question we need to answer is, “now that we’re here, what are we going to do about it?”  How will we change once this ends? How can we learn and be better from this experience? The losses we all continue to process and work through are very hard. Compound that with social distancing and quarantining, and it’s brutally hard. But we press on. We endure. We survive. I’ve been making a conscious effort to be intentional about refocusing my priorities and thinking about how I want to allocate my time and resources to those things I value most. This is a rare time in life. Many of us have more free time than we’ve had in years.  Let’s use that time to our advantage. Consider using this time to think about any changes you might want in how you’re going to live life going forward. Let’s remember the term self-care. We’ve been through and continue to go through life’s most challenging journey. Use some time to be good to yourself. Let’s keep rowing.

I’ve been in sales and marketing all of my business life. I’ve always measured my success by my productivity. This has carried over into my personal life. I don’t believe this is the time for that. Like many of you, when this quarantine started, I made a list of all the things I “needed” to do. That list remains virtually untouched. After all the chaos and upheaval in the world, my list seems insignificant. Somethings that I thought were important don’t seem to matter much now.  If those closets, drawers, and boxes get cleaned out, that’s good.  If they don’t, that’s good too. That list will be there when the time is right.  Our goal right now should be to survive this time with our spiritual, mental, and physical health intact. We brothers of widowhood continue to run our race with endurance. We’re all in the same boat, let’s just keep rowing.