Greetings, friends! I just got back from my walk/run. I actually ran five 2-minute intervals this morning. (I’ve been alternating 4 minutes walking, 2 minutes running for the past couple of weeks.)
I still get some pain in my right glute and hamstring, but it doesn’t get worse as I run, although going uphill is worse than flat areas and downhill. I didn’t have much pain at all when walking today, which is a big improvement, so I’m hopeful that I may be starting to get better.
Even though my tests revealed a labral hip tear and trace retrolisthesis in my lumbar spine, my doctor isn’t convinced either is to blame for the pain I’ve been getting under my derriere. He thinks I just tweaked my hamstring.
My physical therapist and I are a little skeptical because desk sitting seems to exacerbate the symptoms, and I feel like that is what caused them to begin with. Plus my back is very tight, so she is still working on that along with hamstring flexibility, hip and core strength, etc.
Anyway, I can say for sure that the more I move around and stay active, the better I feel. So I’m trying to be more consistent with walking and stretching, and making better use of my adjustable desk and setting my iPhone timer so I don’t sit or stand for longer than 20 minutes at a time. I think my situation is more or less a result of getting old and sitting too much. Ain’t aging fun?
Oh, well. As my momma always says, it beats the alternative…
As I was walking/running today, I was thinking about our current situation… Some people do their best thinking in the shower. I do my best thinking when I’m walking/running.
I actually opened my Notes app and started typing the words that were forming in my head as I walked, and I’m so glad I did because the rest of my post is pretty much written for me. Of course, I will probably edit and tweak it to death, because that is what I do. But here goes.
There’s a lot of worry and despair in my social feeds as of late, and several conversations with friends over the past week or so lead me to believe people are entering a new stage in this whole pandemic situation… despair.
Many thought this would be over by now, and as fall looms and school decisions are upon us, you may be feeling like this is our new normal and it will never end. That Covid is here to stay, and our future consists of mask-wearing, polarizing debates, alternating lockdowns and short glimpses of freedom…. that life as we know it right now may just be our new normal.
Friends, I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but I want to assure you — this will end.
Listen, I don’t have a magic 8 ball, and I can’t see the future. I certainly don’t proclaim to have all the answers, or any of them, really. I don’t know how this fall is going to play out, but eventually, the current state of affairs will be no more.
We will get a vaccine… probably next spring sometime. Whether you want to take it or not is not the point. Please don’t debate that here. The point is, it is coming, and with it will come a significant reduction in Covid cases.
Doctors will get better at knowing how to treat it, they will figure out how to help those “long-haulers” who are suffering its effects longterm, and life will return to some semblance of “normal”.
Look at your history books — the 1918 flu pandemic was much like Covid-19, and 100 years later, and it’s an almost-forgotten historical event.
I’m not saying it is going to be easy, or that some of us won’t miss out on significant life events and experiences during this time, and I can’t promise that you won’t lose a loved one to this nasty beast or that we won’t suffer hardships.
But Covid-19 as we know it will run it’s course, and this will end. We will not have to wear masks forever. Our kids will go back to school full-time. We will get to go to concerts and ball games again. We will get to see family and friends we’ve been staying away from. We will get to travel again. We will worship together again… at full capacity, and sing hymns with gusto.
A year from now, things will be very different than they are today. Meanwhile, we just have to make the best of it and try not to get too bogged down in the here and now.
I think this is hardest for the planners, those who need to know what to expect and don’t do change well. You know who you are.
And I get it, it’s frustrating. But this is just a year in our lives. A crazy one, for sure, but just one year in a long succession of years that will at some point all sort of blend together into a lifetime of ups and downs.
Those of us who have lived many years have the advantage of this perspective. I was trying to explain this to my 14-year-old daughter last night.
When I had babies, I felt like that was my life, and it would be that way forever. Now those years seem like a blip.
I could describe so many times in my life that were just like that — high school, college, the years with young babies, my years as a 3rd grade teacher… At each of those times in my life, those experiences defined me and were part of my identity, and the next thing I knew, they were just a distant memory, and I had moved on to the next phase.
My point is, this too shall pass. It’s trite, but it’s true.
I think we all just need to take a breath, let go of our expectations, and try to go with the flow as much as possible.
And for those of us who believe, to rest in the assurance that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.
Of course, these decisions regarding school and travel and whatever else you might be dealing with in light of Covid are difficult and important, and they must be made, but they don’t need to become a defining moment in our lives.
Decision fatigue is a real thing, and I’m struggling with that a bit myself right now. All I know to do is make a choice to the best of my ability given the information I have at the moment, be willing to accept that it might change at any given time, hand it over to the Lord, and then take one day at a time and reassess as necessary. That’s really all we can do.
I don’t know how this is all going to pan out, but I do know one thing: This too shall pass.
Muchas gracias Jo-Lynne.