Today is one of those days.
My emotions are raw. Seemingly innocuous things trigger tears. Things like hummingbirds drinking from the red glass feeder or my cat stretching after waking up from his nap.
For some reason, I keep thinking about my parents who — thankfully — are vibrant and healthy 3,000 miles away from my home in the Northwest as they shelter in place in theirs in the Northeast.
I miss them.
I miss a lot of things.
For the most part, I’ve been keeping my wits about me despite the raging storm of the pandemic.
I stay away from the news.
I don’t spend much time on social media.
I have a running bucket list of the things I can’t wait to do once the world opens up again.
I’ve doubled down on building my thought leadership through my podcast and teaching virtual courses.
I’m also continuing to deliver projects for clients who engaged me prior to the pandemic.
Still.
Despite the sunshine and the flowers and the red-winged blackbirds making a ruckus outside my home office as they shake seeds from the feeders onto the ground, I feel the kind of sadness that comes only from grief.
That comes from knowing things will never be the same again.
That comes from acknowledging what’s happening was inevitable.
Today is one of those days.
I’ve felt this kind of sadness before.
You get to a certain age and you recognize its knock at your door.
I used to do everything I could to ignore it or scare it away.
Now I call, “Door’s open!” and it comes in.
I never know how long it’s going to stay. If it’s going to demand snacks and settle down on the couch to binge-watch Billions or say a quick hello before moving on to raid someone else’s refrigerator.
I let it do its thing. Fighting against it only leaves me frustrated and weary.
The kind of weariness you feel after traveling home from half-way around the world and there were too many flight delays and cancellations and you had to sit on hold for what felt like an eternity listening to the same music loop with the occasional interruption meant to make you feel good because it is framed as an apology.
“We’re sorry for the delay. Your business is important to us. Please stay on the line and one of our friendly customer service architects will be with you shortly.”
That loop is now playing in everyone’s ear across the globe. We hear it over and over and over again, not knowing if we’ll get through to someone before we lose our patience and hang up or get disconnected and have to start the process from scratch.
Not knowing when — or if — it will ever stop.
Praying that it will stop and we never hear it again.
