What success has looked like the past three years is different from non-pandemic times.
The title of this post is a quote from Ted Lasso season 3. It’s unexpectedly good and perfect for these late pandemic times.
I’ve been living in survival mode for a long time, which made living through these times easier even if different.
While the Pandemic is not quite over, a person dies from covid every four minutes, and coronavirus is still around, I need to resume rebuilding my social life. Even before I caught covid, and it turned into Long Covid or Post Viral Syndrome, I did not have much of a social life. If anything, I had more of a social life during the lockdown period of 2020 when everyone was online and I occasionally visited family outside. As the pandemic turned into years, I continued to keep people at a distance, both physically and emotionally. I was right to be afraid of catching covid and right to do everything I could to be safe regarding masks, distancing, and staying away from groups of people.
This article recently published by The Guardian says that life with long covid is on par with advanced cancers. While I am fortunate this condition is not worse, I can do a little bit of activity and seems to be improving physically very slowly… It’s tough to live with the unpredictability. It feels like every new bit of research makes the outlook worse, and I feel I’ve become numb after following it every day for the past 18 months.
Despite the Covid emergency being declared over, I don’t feel safe going to a crowded indoor place. I’m slowly taking my mask off in some outdoor places near people where they aren’t close by, such as The Mariners game I went to recently or my long-time Dentist.
There’s no way I want to extend the time I have this Long covid, or catch coronavirus again when I haven’t fully recovered. ….If I fully recover.
Whatever happens with this, I can’t control it. Like, I’m doing what I need to. But obsessing by doom scrolling won’t help. Continuing to read covud news everyday won’t care about this or make me feel better.
It is okay to check less often now. If there’s an outbreak, I’ll know. I’ll continue to be safe and mask up, but I’ll be a little more vulnerable.
I’m tired of living a .500 life.
In sports, a .500 record means you have an equal amount of wins and losses. I’m at this point because I’ve had a winning record in life during the pandemic because of the work I’ve done. As a former people pleaser, codependent, and recovering reality escape artist, I’ve come a long way since 2020. I wouldn’t be here without all the people along the way who helped, and my previous workplace.
I like feeling confident and comfortable in my own skin.
I need to stop being afraid and running from intimacy. I need to stop doing things that don’t serve me. I need to stop being scared of love. I need to believe it when it’s happening to me. I deserve the good things in life too. For too long, I’ve settled for less and made myself small. Settling for good enough, isn’t enough anymore.
I’m holding people at a distance. People who could be friends
I’m tired of only having online relationships. I need in-person activities too. I can manage the random symptom flare-ups and down days.
I’ve grown from the person I was before. Surviving from Seratonin Syndrome in March and recovering opened my eyes. It made me realize that I wanted a different life and that I want more out of it. This was a life or death experience that I went through.
I feel I’m ready to resume the goals I set for 2023 in January. Yeah, it’s now June 10th, and there’s only so much I can do with the amount of time left, but it’s worth trying.
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