What Happened to My Sunny Disposition?

As I return to this blog after a protracted dry spell, I am struck by the irony in the name of the blog-  Remember What You Know.  When I began writing here 5 years ago, I felt that there was often deep wisdom to access as we move through life, that even as new experiences presented themselves, there was some "knowing"  that would help me navigate and understand. So I try to always remind myself to trust my instincts, my intuition, my innate knowing.

But here's the rub.  Nothing about what is happening to our lives right now feels familiar.  There is no "knowing'. There is no historical context.  And it all happened so damn fast.

I have been thinking alot lately about optimism and the power of positive thinking.  I am truly one of those eternal optimists.  I wake up just about every morning feeling cheerful and hopeful.  Or at least I used to.  My husband and I joke about our diametrically opposite outlooks.  He, a trained architect, is always thinking about the worse case scenario, anticipating the worse.  I, on the other hand, choose to focus on the promise and the possibilities. This makes for an interesting marital dynamic. As the current nightmare began to unfold, I held out hope for as long as I could that all would be well and we would get through it with minimal disruption and heartbreak.  And as my anxiety mounted, my husband remained cool as a cucumber looking at me with a shrug and that "told you so, I knew it was going to be bad" look that is so insanely irritating from a spouse.

So now we have been housebound for almost 5 weeks and the daily news reports have been an avalanche of bad news- an empath's worst nightmare.  How can there be this much suffering, this much horror?  What kind of dystopian nightmare are we actually living through?

The other dynamic at play is that apart from being an optimist,  I am also an extreme extrovert.  I thrive on being out in the world with people.  I thrive on doing what I love which is making theatre and music.  This theatre-making that I love so much is a team sport.  Not only do actors love to perform for an audience but they thrive on doing it together, with other creative souls.  All of my upcoming theatre projects have been put on pause with no clear sense of when we might return to the spaces where we gather.

The other great joy in my life is spending summers at a camp for girls in Vermont.  I live for the summerime when I can be at my beloved summer camp, surrounded by children and young adults, perched on the side of a beautiful lake, singing and playing and living in a warm and vibrant community.  It is unclear whether camp will happen this summer and if it does, how will the experience be altered. If we are unable to return to camp it will be a devastating blow not only to me, but to the hundreds of kids and their families who yearn to return to this special place where they can be their best selves.

So in the face of all of this, it's very hard to stay upbeat and cheerful,  to maintain my optmistic nature.  So I do the best I can and appreciate what we have.  We live in a beautiful place.  We have space, we have a big garden that will no doubt be spectacular this summer.  I have a devoted dog who is about the best companion a girl could have in a pandemic.  I have a new flock of chickens and 12 fish who survived the winter in our fish pond. And of course I have a wonderful husband.  We've had 36 years to practice "getting along" and we're doing just fine.  So these are my companions for now.  I sit with all of them every day and dream of a brighter future.  I miss my friends dearly.  I weep when I think about how long it will be before I can see my sweet granddaughter, Mabel, or my kids in Denver. But it won't be forever.  Sitting at home for a while longer is a small price to pay to help us get through this horror.  And I trust that my sunny disposition will return soon. And on the bright side, here I am returning to this blog.  That is definitely something to celebrate.