(This post is part of a series of daily letters from me to my future children reporting from the emerging paradigm.)
Dear Kids:
I’m starting to settle into the idea that I might not travel for the next year.
It’s been seven months since the last time I traveled (January, for Spunky’s wedding, which was two months prior to quarantine). This has to be the longest I’ve gone without travel since I was in high school. And even that, I think I went camping with my girl scout troop at least four times a year. And went to camp every summer.
Kyle Cease teaches to lean into doing something different, that’s the opposite of what you usually do, in order to expand. Last year I stopped producing any content for four months, the most private I had been on the internet since I started blogging in 2002.
I learned so much about myself during that time. I think this might be the case, too.
I don’t know for sure if I won’t travel at all, but it sure seems unlikely that this virus will be under control anytime soon. I can thrive in whatever circumstances.
Maybe I’ll get an RV I can drive around in (the one I live in can’t go anywhere because I don’t have a vehicle to pull it). Maybe I’ll go someplace nearby for a day trip. I just feel like staying put is the most cautious choice and I’m in a quarantine pod with my mother. Traveling doesn’t seem like a risk worth taking.
Quarantine kind of feels like a deeper adventure than I originally contemplated as I tuck into “How long is this going to last?” It’s always with a big heap of gratitude that I get to quarantine at a place that feels like summer camp. I can even go to my mom’s art studio for arts and crafts, sometimes she and I play ping pong.
I had some really fun zooms and lives today. I taught my first chair only zoom aerobics class for my friend Chrystal’s “Fat Chat.”
Deidra hosted a 4:20 instagram live sister sesh where we got to pop in and share things the other Glowing Goddess Getaway babes might not know about us. A bunch of my friends went live with Deidra and it felt like we were all together. I miss getting together with them but Deidra and Sailene have done a remarkable job keeping the sisterhood together with their livestreams.
Community happens when we all continue to show up.
I have been studying leadership skills intensely for the past year and one thing I am working to do is cheerfully adapt to new circumstances.
It takes an emotionally mature and mentally tough person to adapt cheerfully when things don’t go their way. I had originally intended to be on the road much of this summer and that didn’t happen. The pandemic is making travel potentially lethal. I don’t really need to go anywhere. So I’ll cheerfully adapt and see what I can learn about myself staying in one place for a long time.
This is already the first home I’ve lived in where I’m completely unpacked! And it’s easier for me to keep clean.
As an aside, I’m not motivated to do laundry frequently since it involves wearing a mask in the common area laundry room. Doing laundry with a mask on is weird, it is an oddly sensory experience for me and not being able to smell my fresh clothes from the dryer is something I am missing. So much weird pandemic grief!
I hope you learn to cheerfully adapt to changing circumstances.
xoxo,
Mom
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