It’s dusk outside and small beams of the sunrise wake my eye lids. The air is brisk and the chill of a cold morning is here to greet me. As the reality sets in to remind me of my current quarantined situation my mind can’t help but to wonder off into the darker territories of doubt. The image of myself coughing and dying alone without anyone there to comfort me from the undiscriminating COVID-19 has hushed my positivity and shook my emotional strength. I think, “ this can’t be it for me. Is it possible that I find myself in my actual last days? Did I do all the things I wished to accomplish? Did I go to all the places I wanted to go? Did I say all the things that I wanted to say that I held hidden in my heart? All my hopes, all my dreams would just die with me. Small drops of water run down my morning face serenading this dark medley of scenes.

    The Phone rings. I pick up. It’s my best friend. “ how are you ? “ he saids. “ I’m good “ I realize and say at the same time. My words rush out before me to explain the somber mood he had just woke me from. “ Looks as though you woke up and realized you were still dreaming” my friend said. “ I guess so “ I laughed.

    Those are the moments that can sweep through during this time of Quarantine. They come to ask if we are strong enough. If we can handle difficult times. They come to shake us up a bit, to keep us on our toes. It’s unquestionable that these are unprecedented times we find ourselves in and times that will require from us the most self disciple, emotional strength, and mental resilience we can muster. Everything happens for a reason and although that reason hasn’t been revealed yet we can trust that one day in the later future we will understand.

   In the meantime we are in a state of maintaining. Or in other words we have to preserve. We have to preserve food for longevity, we have to preserve funds due to limited income, and we have to preserve ourselves. This is also a time of great opportunity if we can see it. We can take advantage of this time in different and individual ways that will make us even better than we were before. We have a chance to grow more through educating ourselves, pursuing certifications, or cultivating other skills that we may have not been able to due to being busy with work. We can repair and upgrade things in the house that we once put off from doing. We have a chance to explore what we are really made of individually by trying new things that we normally wouldn’t try. This is a way we preserve.

   An analogy I can use is that of  preserving food. If you have cooked a good meal and you want to freeze some things for a long time you would need to have consideration of the food and place it into a freezer proof type of concealment for preservation until you wish to thaw it out and eat it. If you use the wrong materials to preserve the food it will acquire freezer burn and will be no good when it is thawed. However if you did have the right consideration and used the right material to protect the food in the freezer then when it thawed you could have a great tasting meal unbothered by the ravage cold. This is the way we should have consideration for ourselves during this time. We have to use the right materials such as self discipline, emotional strength, and mental resilience in order to preserve properly during this ‘cold’ period.  We have to keep ourselves motivated and encouraged even if we stumble and find ourselves lost in the  small alleyways of doubt and darkness. Don’t allow the power of your own imagination to pave ways for you in direction that would see you defeated. Carry on and upward towards the light where all of the powers of possibility reside.

                                                   - G 

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