Even still, life is beautiful

I don’t want to write about coronavirus anymore. I don’t want to think about it anymore.

But I guess I must. Such is life, hey. This is life right now. The isolation. The separation. The rising numbers. The confusion. The unknown. The uncertainty. I guess we can’t escape it.

But– maybe, even still, life is beautiful.

We are seeing people putting in extra effort to take care of their neighbours, their friends, and their family. One thing I have especially appreciated during this time is the extra effort the media have put in to regularly point out the ‘good news stories’.

For me, it’s been an opportunity to spend time with some of my friends who live on the other side of the country, who I don’t see much anyway. Since we’ve all had more time, we’ve been calling on zoom regularly. It has been so special for me to hang out with these amazing people. Mel, Beth, Nat, Matt, Jo and Gabby– Fridays have been one of the highlights of my week at the moment.

I’ve also been able to spend more time with my siblings. Even though we’ve all been a little more tense and difficult than usual, we’ve managed to have a lot of fun. Especially with many, many games of handball. I hadn’t played it since primary school, but right now, getting to play it with my younger siblings has been such a great way to completely switch off from everything thing else going on. When we’re playing handball, we’re able to relax and enjoy each other’s company. For Gabby and I, going back to a primary school game has been an excellent way to deal with stress and anxiety. I highly recommend it. 🙂

School has just closed, for who knows how long. It’s tempting for me to let the uncertainty of when I’ll be able to have outside contact again overwhelm me. But I’m trying to focus on the positive things, and not invite anxiety in. For one, I finally have a chance to step back and properly take a break. I can rest. I can reset. I don’t have to keep going to school while it feels like a ghost town because most people stopped going a while ago. Also, now I have the chance to spend more time writing and reading. I have already started writing some fiction for fun, something I haven’t done for a while. I am making plans for True-Story and for my email list. I’ve started making myself a list of all the books I want to read. And honestly, this introvert is looking forward to that. I think I will manage to enjoy the next couple of weeks, for those reasons.

The last couple of weeks, I haven’t really felt like dragging myself out of bed to go to school. But each day, just taking a moment to soak in the sunrise, listen to the birds, and rest in the peace of the early morning was enough to make me feel like everything was ok. Those things don’t change. The world is still as beautiful as ever (even more so in some parts of the world, because of less tourists!) rest in the beauty. I am going to be trying to go out and just lie in the grass and watch the clouds often. I think that’s one way that we can relax and switch off. Just enjoy. It’s okay to do that. Take some time to take a break from the chaos.

My dad has been away for a few weeks now, and it will be a while before we see him again. It’s hard. I’m not exactly finding it easy. but he has had enough time to call us several times a day, which has been amazing. I feel very fortunate that we can still talk to him and spend time with him. On Friday night, we watched the movie Life is Beautiful together; a beautiful, funny, heart-rending and devastating movie about WW2 (hence the title and message of this post). To get the opportunity to do that was so lovely for us.

Life can be so ugly. It can be so chaotic. So wrong. Things happen, that we never would have imagined. I guess we’re all feeling that right now. But even still, life is beautiful. It’s easier to see sometimes than others, but even still, there is beauty. There is light. Somehow. I’m not saying to pretend the ugliness isn’t there– it is so important that we realise it, and that we work to change it. We can’t ignore it. But we don’t have to drown in it.

Even still, life is beautiful.