Would I have anticipated all the conflicting feelings, the uncertainty, the anxiety, the decisions? Would I have predicted the misinformation and fear-driven divides? Would the fleeting thought of sitting out of favorite activities or home schooling or cancelling much-anticipated vacations ever even crossed my mind? The answer, of course, is no. I could not have predicted where we would be as a nation or a community or even as a family.
We were cruising along, entering back into life as normally as we could, until a potential COVID exposure sent me down a rabbit hole of anxiety. The thought of getting sick did not consume my thoughts or send me shaking into my first-in-my-lifetime panic attack. It was the ripple effects of the decisions we then had to make that plunged me into a two week pit of anxiety attacks and overwhelming feelings. Who knew that a potential exposure to a virus could wreak such havoc on my emotional well-being. All the questions and uncertainties came flooding in. What do we do now? Can we still attend a wedding? Go to Bible School? Can the girls finish performing in their plays? Do we need to get tested? What if we test positive? Then do I have to call the dentist and the swim lesson teacher and all the kids in acting class and my work and church and all the people we were around in the past week? We don't feel sick, but are we? Are we putting others at risk? Have we been around too many people? Are we not being responsible enough? And what does this look like for school? Do we have to shut down our family for 2 weeks every time someone in our family gets a cough...or a fever? Every time we are around someone else who sniffles? The COVID test was really unpleasant. Will I have to make my kids have that done again? How often? How many potential exposures are in our future? Will each one cause this much angst? Is it better to just keep ourselves isolated? How do we weigh the costs of not going back to school or not letting the kids do what they love or keeping ourselves isolated? Is a school year of masks and physical distancing going to be a stressful environment for my kids? Or is remaining isolated from their friends more detrimental? How do I make an informed decision when I don't know what information to believe? How is it that so many people I respect feel so differently about this? What is the right decision for our family?
These are all the questions I wrestle with while I am trying to get to sleep at night. These are all the uncertainties that don't have good answers. There is no right answer. There is no easy solution. Just as much as I prayed for God's peace and comfort during my fits of anxiety, I also prayed for wisdom in these decisions we need to make as a family. We are a healthy family with a statistically low risk of having complications from contracting this virus. The virus is not my concern. But I am seeing first-hand what this virus can do to my mental and emotional health, and my primary concern is for the health and well-being of my family. Their physical health, sure. But just as concerning is our social and emotional and mental health. If you had asked me back in March what questions and uncertainties we would be facing today, I would have had no idea. This journey has not been an easy road trip to a fun, new destination. It has been a bumpy ride through twisty roads without a map. No one can tell me how to get where we are going. I feel fully unprepared for the trip, and I am not sure what waits at the end...or how long it will take us to get there.
I like to be prepared. I like to be in control. But through this, God is teaching me so much. He is helping me to realize that I don't need to be in control because He is. He has opened my eyes to how debilitating anxiety can be and given me more empathy for those who struggle with this on a regular basis. He has shown me how I am surrounded by those who care. I am reminded once again how thankful I am for my husband and the way he takes care of me and our family, especially in those moments when I can't. I don't want to struggle, but it's in my struggles that I rely more on God. And through this current season of struggle, I just have to keep reminding myself... He's got this. He knows how this journey ends and He will help us make it through.
