I get that it
stinks. It all stinks; all of the things we need or are used to
that have changed. But every one of us will need to come to a
point where we accept that it all *has* changed. We can’t
cling to things that *now* will risk our lives or the lives of
others. From the trauma survivor stand-point:
The event
(though we can’t view it like other traumatic events yet) *has
already happened*.
We can’t look at it as something that is
coming; that will break us.
We are starting today.
We are
starting now, with the knowledge that our reality is going to be
different, and sometimes ugly and uncertain, and we’ll have to
sacrifice a lot of the privileges we have shared as groups or an
entire society. None of us chose where or when we were born,
we’ve been lucky to enjoy these experiences enough to feel their
lack. But, trust me, we can survive with less. I’ve always
discovered that I can survive much more than I ever would have
imagined. And things change, we’ll grow and adapt to this.
But, in each moment, we must look only on how to move forward
from where we are today. Some days we’ll jump. Somedays
we might slowly budge forward. Somedays, we may stumble.
We keep going.
The past still serves a purpose. We
will carry with us the good, our experiences, our knowledge and
skills and compassion. We will carry with us pieces of those lost.
We can use past frameworks as the foundation of what we will build,
but we can’t use it to justify building walls; only the future *we
build now* can provide shelter and hope. But what *needs* to
change in existing systems to accommodate these shifts. What
can we work on *now* to protect and address issues of mental
health/coping, sustaining behavioral changes that will last
indefinitely, providing access to healthcare, needs, education,
accurate information, and family supports.
Today.
We start
today.
We keep going…through indefinite todays, doing
what we can with what we have in each moment.
We’ll help
those who stumble.
We *are* moving through this together.
And,
together, we need to have conversations about how we walk into a
sustainable tomorrow.