I've been here before. I know these feelings. They’re very familiar but rather hard to name. 

During this particular time of our lives, all the feels have come flooding in… all at once. It has been a lot to process. It’s okay if you’re feeling like you can’t piece together a profound lesson from all of this. Our current climate has been changing by the minute. 

Amid this global pandemic, we ALL feel the weight upon which COVID19 has cast down on our health and wellness, opportunities, goals, vacations, celebrations, major life events, and ultimately our lives. It sucks. I think it’s important for us to own how much it sucks as a universal truth. I’ve learned that two truths can be true simultaneously. You are allowed to be sad about your situation while recognizing and acknowledging that your situation may be a lot more fortunate than others. 

When all of this started, early on I had to come to terms with the fact that my plan to reconnect with my family soon would change. The month of April would no longer be ending with a trip back to the V.I. for our carnival festivities. I had worked all through the Christmas holidays with the motivation that 5 months later I would get to see my family, after not seeing them for months on end. I feel a lot of things from this fact and I hope that ultimately it makes me feel even more grateful whenever I do reconnect with them.

Recently, I’ve been having some rather vivid dreams where I would be filled with rage. I’d wake up heavy-chested and amused by the most insignificant of circumstances that had me furious. On one occasion, I went to a restaurant with some friends and they happened to be out of the meal that I wanted. I was so pissed and ready to make a scene. Was this the last meal of my existence? What was going on with me? When I woke up, I felt ashamed and scared of how upset I had allowed myself to get. This wasn’t like me. The dreams had continued for a few more days, right up until I started to think a little bit more deeply about how our current reality along with some other components of my life have been making me feel frustrated, upset, and ultimately angry. 

This is the opportune time for us to reflect on how honest we’ve been with ourselves about what we have been feeling, even the most self-aware of us. What burdens, bothers, and weighs on us the most tends to be subconsciously suppressed by our head to protect our hearts. On the surface, I felt okay. I have been finding ways to work around and embrace this new reality. But ultimately anger is what I have been feeling beneath the surface. I know now that the upset I feel is for all of us.

These feelings that we are experiencing, whatever they individually and collectively may be, are real and are meant to be felt. The ones that feel so close to home and so familiar to us are our proof that we have been here before. If we should find any solace from all this, it is in this fact. It is such a privilege to experience and feel the spectrum of human emotion in such a short period. Yes, I said it, a privilege. We come out with a much more interesting story to tell. One that other people can feel.