This week a patient inspired me (as most of my patients constantly do) when she was describing the difficulties she’s had in 2020. “Just keep swimming”, she said. Read on to understand.

It’s been a fucked up year, in many regards, and the irony is I began 2020 with the most positive feelings about it! You can read it in my Jan blog. I thought 2020 would bring us love and growth.

I guess you can say in some ways it has, with the shit that’s hit all of us through this pandemic. All that’s coming to the surface. It’s releasing all the horrible things that people have kept inside for so long. The result is some are feeling love as a result. I felt the love. I feel the love, still. But a lot of us are witnessing the evil, too.

The aftermath of the pandemic is so much more than the illness.

It’s the issues surrounding inequity that we are seeing in communities more afflicted than others, the resulting trauma of getting sick and then perhaps hospitalized and maybe death.

Or it’s the loss of a job or being furloughed without pay.

Or the living conditions of multiple people in a small home and not being able to isolate/quarantine from each other.

Or the inability to care for your loved ones who need you because you can’t be around them to protect other loved ones.

Or the anxiety and depression that ensue from the simple existence of a larger unknown.

Or the inability to go to school or college. Or being forced to go to school or college.

Or the teacher that has to go to school or college despite having a medical condition/life situation that puts them in harms way, otherwise they’ll lose their job and not be able to care for their family.

Or being the renter who has to squat or the landlord who isn’t getting paid.

And with all of this comes the uprising of injustices. To black lives and that too, in a multitude that doesn’t seem to stop. The political heat is growing and the corruption is becoming more than tiring. RBG dies and with her death she takes security for female lives in the US. People are worried their visas will be snatched from them and they’ll be deported without notice.

It’s a whole lot of uncertainty.

Three quarters of our year has been spent with masks on and indoors. My niece plays with dolls who are given a ‘packet’ from their teacher (her) symbolizing what kids are being given during COVID-19 education.

So my patient said ‘just keep swimming’ as her way to deal with this tiresome year.

As she was speaking I realized how extra tired I am. I had vitality that kept me going through all this shit because of a relationship of love and in general, because I am a very positive person by nature. I live with hope. I always have. I always will.

But when she was talking with me a few days ago, I accepted the reality that this year has been really hard. So very hard. And I felt it. It took my heartbreak to feel it.

I don’t like looking at things with a negative bent on it. It does something to me that I can’t sit with. Not that I can’t sit in the dark and see my shadows. I just like to turn the light on.

That may be why I can’t be angry at my ex-boyfriend. I have more feelings of love for him than any other emotion.

One week has gone by, today, and I haven’t heard from him. I know I shouldn’t have expected a response when he blocked me off but I was holding on to hope. I still am. That I may get a reach out and an opportunity to talk and clear the air.

Life is so short. I don’t want to die without telling this man that I did truly love him and nothing felt fake to me. The connection was real to me. And I’d like to understand.

I also know I may not get that gift. If I don’t, I want to tell the world and in writing, that I have no regrets of opening my heart to the man that broke it. I own the breaking. That’s really not his act. He may have done something mean to me, but I let it break. So, I would do this all over again.

And if I can have one extra day of love the way I used to get it from him, I would do it again, for another day.

That’s what my lesson is so far, after one week of extreme self care and reflection. I will keep loving. I will keep my heart open. I will look at the ugly and beauty on our planet and will place my bets on its beauty. There is more we have to do as a human race to increase the quotient of love on Earth. I want to be a part of that. I refuse to be a part of the non-believers. Let’s fight together, with love, for a better human home.