Dismantling and remaking home is tiresome and complicated. There’s a particular tension to maintain because the moving process requires you to hold onto normal and orderly as long as you possibly can. One of my kids in particular struggles with the disruption and mess that occurs during the moving process. I’ve tried to minimize the disorder in our world these past few weeks, especially in the midst of the worldwide insanity of Covid-19, but there comes a point when the warmth of home gets stripped down and packed into boxes.
Today was that day. Today the familiar turned sterile. Today the curtains came down.
However, sometimes we must endure hardships today for the promises that lie ahead in tomorrow. There is great joy in knowing that after nearly 5 years we will finally be back in a space that is wholly ours. Finally, we are establishing permanency in Florida! Color can go happily back on walls, and I can plant whatever tropical thing my heart desires in our yard (if you’re curious, it will be a lemon tree!) But even more importantly, my children will know where home is. Finding a home is very important to me, especially with two more young adults eying their horizons preparing to begin their lives apart from mine.
What I know now that I didn’t know when we first moved to Florida in 2015, is that home can be re-established. Every box that gets unpacked, every treasured memory that goes back up on the wall, and the first batch of cookies made in the kitchen all work together to stabilize and re-root a family. There are absolutely uncomfortable and tiring changes to work through in the process. But the good news is that resiliency arises while challenging situations and makes us stronger and wiser on the other side of the difficulty.
In many ways, this is where we are all living in a coronavirus world. Life is being dismantled from all of its norms. Everything we’ve known is suddenly sterile and rapidly changing. The entire situation is tiresome, and right now we feel anything but resilient. Whether we like it or not, the proverbial curtains are coming down on the way we’ve all been living.
For anyone wanting to be honest though, the “normal” our society has built is simply not sustainable for us as people, or frankly our planet. While this pandemic is disruptive and scary, it’s also a unique opportunity to sort through our “stuff”, figure out what’s really important, get rid of what’s not, and decide what we want our lives to look like post-coronavirus.
