Serendipity

Getting my feelings out in writing helped ease me into this quarantine life. It brought my feelings into the forefront and gave me an outlet for all of the confusing emotions and thoughts that have taken centerstage in my mind. It almost felt like a life raft that helped me float above the swirling currents of news and fear and worry. At some point along the way though my raft sprung a leak and all my thoughts and feelings got swallowed up in this giant black hole of uncertainty. Suddenly the process of writing didn’t alleviate my worries, it just took them from the abstract and made them real things reflected back at me like a mirror depicting someone who looks like someone I used to know.

I feel like I’ve change so much as a person in the last 10 weeks that I’m even having a hard time keeping up. In a lot of ways I feel like a grown-up. We’ve been on our own taking care of our kids without any help for over 100 days and if you would asked me three months ago if I could even imagine that amount of uninterrupted parenting I would be on the floor rolling around in hysterics. I’ve had some of the lowest, most meaning-of-life-questioning moments during this quarantine and made it through all of them, maybe a little battered and bruised but still in one piece. I don’t like that my children have borne witness to my struggles but I hope seeing me as a human with flaws will allow them to accept their own shortcomings and those of others.

Daily twilight walks through the forest have become an important part of my self-care and have kept me grounded and immersed in the natural beauty of our world which lately seems to be one of the only constants in our life. I’ve watched trout lilies sprout and blossom, secret trilliums blooming for only a lucky few to see, stumbled across a nest full of baby bunnies, watched the stars with the bats and in the most enchanting of experiences, had a coyote walk right by me. All day I yearn to be back in the woods and stay as late as the sunlight will allow until the nocturnal creatures start emerge. This ritual has become as important to my day as air is to my lungs and yesterday’s walk will be one I never forget.

As I sat on a stump listening to my music a woman walked past and waved from a distance. She got maybe couple hundred yards and I could feel she was going to come and talk to me and typically I don’t love talking to strangers. She said she’s been having a really hard day and wondered if it wouldn’t bother me if she sat 6 feet away and just vented to me for a bit because she had no one to talk to. She was very troubled and more than once said she was seriously considering taking her own life. I didn’t know what to do but I knew I could talk to her so we talked and I made her laugh a few times but I really didn’t know what was gonna happen to her after this interaction ended. I wrestled in my mind with calling 911 and ultimately that’s what I did. I don’t know what ended up happening but I know she had no one at home waiting for her and that she needed to talk to someone so badly that I figured the professionals would probably be better than me.

I have found treasures in almost all of my forest walks and when I replay it in my mind I don’t know who needed to meet who more in that scenario. I know that it changed my perspective and I really hope that it was the start of something really good for her too.