While you’re in the middle of a dark night, it feels like the dawn is an impossibility when it is, in fact, an inevitability.
Even when it feels endless, please remember that this will pass, in the same exact way that everything else that has temporarily cast a shadow over your life has passed.
This will pass and some things will be better.
Some will be worse.
This will pass and the world will be different, but it is always changing.
This will pass and we will resume life again, maybe not as we once knew it, but the way we know it now.
This will pass because we will adapt, we will change, we will find a new normalcy.
We will adjust.
We will find our rhythms.
We will get used to the shifts that have upended us now, and we will settle into them.
We will find calmness again, we will find joy again.
We will hug the people we love again.
We will gaze at the night sky and feel awe again.
We will get into routines again.
We will build beauty and seek wonder again.
Right now, the unfamiliarity of it all is compounding our stress. It’s not just that life as we knew it is gone; it’s not just that we’re isolated; it’s not just that there’s no one clear path forward, it’s that this is all unprecedented in our lifetimes.
What this means is that it will be hard to feel at place, especially right away.
Anything new, until familiar, is going to be uncomfortable.
This will pass not because the world is returning to what it was, but because we will adapt to what it is.
This will pass because next time, we will be ready.
This will pass because in the future, we won’t be so shell shocked by social distancing and sanitation and standing six feet apart.
This will pass for the exact same reasons humanity has continued to survive and grow and evolve despite the darkest and most unlikely circumstances.
This will pass because we will find a way through.
All together, and each one of us.
There are no promises about tomorrow: what it will look like, or feel like.
There are only the guarantees we can make based on what we know, which is that the human psyche is malleable, the resilience we have deep down is immeasurable, and our ability to readjust and reacclimatize is as unprecedented as any challenge in front of us.
When you are so certain that the darkness will never fade, please remember: it always has, it always does, it always will.
Even if you can’t see it right now.
Be patient with yourself while you find your footing.
Be easy on yourself while everything is in flux.
Our new lives are waiting on the other side.
We will rise to greet them.