Shaking the Rust Off
There is something important about places - places where I can fit in; places where I find support and places where I find community.
When we are away from our places or when we have a hard time finding a place we can feel alone and isolated.
In my neck of the woods things have begun to reopen after a long season of quarantines and isolation. People have flocked back to many things that were once normal to everyday life. All of this feels really good! But at the same time there is something left-over from the isolation, something I can't quite put my finger on. It manifests itself in some feelings of hesitancy and a subtle reluctance about things that I was once all in on.
I'm calling this something: "Covid-Residue"
All of us were affected by the covid virus, whether we had it or not. The pandemic changed our routines and patterns, our community and without realizing it changed our perspective on life. We all have this residue on us whether we realize it or not. Things aren't the same and Covid has changed us. Some places we have been able to jump right back into no problem, but for some of us re-engaging in other places and communities has been difficult. We are returning back to places that were once "our places" and have found that the communities feel different. We feel different.
There is a common phrase used about athletes who are coming back to their sport after a long recovery from injury, "they are shaking the rust off".
Sometimes it seems that an athlete just jumps back in and all is as before, but more commonly it takes a little while to get back to a place that seems right, to fit in with teammates and to get back to "normal". All of this can be frustrating to an athlete and we may have these same feelings trying to jump back into the world and our communities as well. It may seem like we should just be able to jump back into everything that we were doing before and that every community should feel exactly the same, but I'm finding that this isn't always the case.
Most coaches will tell their athletes after a time of injury to "give it some time - you'll find your groove again".
This sounds like solid advice for all of us during this time of re-engagement. Maybe some of us can jump right into normalcy, but some of us will have more Covid Residue left over than others and it may take awhile. It seems like we would do well to give ourselves and others grace as we re-enter the world and our communities. The reality is that things may take some time before we feel the same sense of community. Things may be different and not everything may be the same. We may have to find the groove again, and sometimes this may include new people and new communities.
Give it some time,
Troy Vande Lune
Big Rock Leader