March 2020 seems like a lifetime ago. It also seems like just yesterday. I think its because everything got put on hold until we could all get back to normal, but nothing stayed the same. We moved through the pandemic in a nonlinear path. Stops and starts, backward and forward, up and down, and in and out. The calendar meant nothing. Birthdays, anniversaries, milestones of every ilk were passed over to be celebrated at a better time.

We stopped living the lives of our choice. We instead were given a small set of options to continue moving through our time. Options in the guise of living. A pretense of life. We lived vicariously through the small set of options. We didn’t make conscious choices, we made do with what was available.

We became a society in an existential crisis. We craved the freedom to be who we are, but who we are meant we had to be mindful of limitations. We willfully confined ourselves to make our small set of options seem more expansive. We diluted ourselves into thinking if we just settle in for long enough we can all reemerge into bright sunlight. But the sunlight was dimmed by our own refusal to see the light.

Everyday life became target practice for misdirected anger. Who’s to blame? Who must shoulder the responsibility to guide us back to normalcy? In March of 2020 we all collectively inhaled, holding our breath until the answers came. The answers came but they didn’t match our questions. So we changed the questions. But the answer is still eluding us.

We must exhale and let time move in its natural rhythm. We must accept that there is no answer. There are millions of them. Stop trying to stop the passage of time. For every second from the beginning to now there has been a chance to live that second, and not the one you were holding on to.

Listen to the ticking of a clock. Focus on the rhythm of your heartbeat. Let that be the guide to what comes next.