Winter is Coming: Accepting the Reality of Covid’s Second Wave

Winter is Coming.

We can no longer longer deny it. The days are getting shorter, the air colder, the layers of clothing heavier. Just like every year, the colder months are coming. However along with this change in season is another unpleasant change: a rise in cases of Covid 19, and with that, the looming possibility of another lock down. 

So many of us found it hard enough to cope with the first lock down, and that one took place just as the weather was becoming warmer. We were able to get creative with park hangouts,outdoor gyms and classrooms, and seeking out patios. However, as the temperature plummets, so do our opportunities to use the outdoors as places of social gathering, and even more simply, escaping the limits of our own four walls.

Personally, I am dreading the idea of another lock down. I feel like I just arrived back in some semblance of normalcy, with returning to school to teach and moving back downtown in the house I share with my roommates. I took my first class back at my pole studio last week, and even in a mask and far apart from my friends and instructors, I felt a kind of joy and connection that I didn’t realize I was missing so much these past few months. 

However, even If gyms and studios are permitted to stay open, I am bracing myself to step away from classes again if cases continue to increase as they are now.

As I wrote in my previous post, I teach thirty kindergartners.  I also have a family with ageing parents and grandparents who I hope to see on occasion. As much as it will suck, I will do what I have to do to close my bubble in order to keep everyone else in my life safe and healthy. 

It feels like a lot of us are in denial right now. For the tail end of summer, we were graced with a taste of sunshine.. Our bubbles grew bigger, restaurants and gyms reopened, sports teams and leagues and other events adapted to stay open.

Things were starting to look up. It feels almost cruel as that ray of connection is now threatened before we even had much of a moment to enjoy it.

Businesses are terrified of another lock down. The government is desperate to keep the economy alive and recovering from the last 5 months of closures. And all of us who felt some mixture of bored and lethargic and restless and miserable and depressed and anxious are finding it much easier to abide by the minimal guidelines set out by our political leaders than those much stricter ones being pushed by Public Health officials which are essentially begging for more closures. 

It’s hard to give up freedom … especially when you are not being forced to. And especially when with that loss of freedom comes much anxiety and discomfort. 

But as I tell my kindergarteners every time they ask why they can’t hug their friend, 

“Soon we can be healthy and safe together by staying apart right now.”

We don’t need to live in fear or anxiety. We don’t need to turn anti-social and hide in our homes.  

But we do need to find a way to adapt the we live and work and play to match the state of the world we are in.  A world where we need to be extra vigilant about not spreading germs and prioritizing health in every way we can- physically and mentally.

Going into this second wave, I am doing my best to think not so much of the things I need to give up, or what I will lose o do without: but the tweaks or changes I will make to what I am doing, whether that be switching up the way I do something or changing what I am doing for something else entirely.  

So it’s not that I am giving up pole.  I am giving up regular classes in the studio.  I can keep my practice and keep supporting the studio through doing virtual classes, and maybe even investing in a home pole-- something that I have been threatening to do for awhile.

It’s not that I am losing out on going out to eat at restaurants-- I am embracing entering a whole new realm of home cooking, sharing new recipes with friends, and treating myself to more takeout and  UberEATS than I usually allow myself. 

Its not that I am unable to date anymore, and losing out on that kind of connection, but I am altering (once again) the way I approach making those connections.  Even as patio season comes to a close, outdoor activities like walking and hiking, and perhaps even skating as weather gets colder add more possibilities. 

And this blog, that I have let slip a little since reentering a busier, more social realm of life, I will be able to dedicate more time to if I am out socializing less in the coming months.  

There is a silver lining-- even in the face of what seems to be a cold, dark and lonely winter.  But it’s often in the darkest, dreariest, stormiest of days, that the heat of a fireplace feels the warmest, and the sip of hot cocoa the sweetest.