So…Then What?

Slight disclaimer: 1) I promise not to keep bringing up George Bailey in every post. I find meaning in a few iconic American movies, and he showed up here, again; 2) I’m sorry if you’re not familiar with the plots of the movies I’m referencing, but they’re iconic, so… ; 3) I don’t currently know of anyone who has contracted the virus, so my experience of this is abstract / academic. I realize this is a serious situation and don’t mean to suggest that the minor inconveniences I mention are the real issues of concern during this crisis; and 4)  I am not an aspiring current events commentator. I truly don’t expect to continue echoing headlines with my blog content. But, as the elephant is in the room, and it’s truly just me and said elephant sheltering at home IN my room, what else do you suppose is on my mind? 

Meet my perspective on the elephant.

When we are told it’s safe to congregate again, how will that feel? Will life return to normal? 

Did life return to normal the day after Dorothy Gale returned from Oz? Did she shake her head, dismissing the technicolor vision she had just experienced, and placidly return to school the next day … thinking about her algebra quiz? Or did Oz make a lasting impact on her day-to-day life?

Or George Bailey … did he wake up the morning after being toasted as “the richest man in town” at the big shindig at his house, and enjoy a quiet cup of coffee with Mary in the kitchen on Christmas morning? Did he walk away from his encounter with Clarence a changed man? 

How do we return to normal after something extraordinary happens? What will be the lasting impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on my life? Or yours? 

I think it may depend on whether we consider the pandemic as a trajectory over which we have zero control, or as an opportunity to pivot. I think it’s a little bit of both. As Forrest Gump posed when considering whether our lives consist of random or predetermined events, “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floatin’ around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both is happenin’ at the same time.”

A trajectory is “the path followed by a projectile flying or an object moving under the action of given forces.”  Mine changed as a result of my divorce in 2010. Or maybe I should say I changed my trajectory. In that situation, “both was happenin’ at the same time,” as my own choice set that outcome in motion.  I exerted an element of control in a situation over which I felt little control, which changed my own trajectory. 

I chose to pivot. A pivot is “the central point on which a mechanism turns.”  By definition, it means a turning point, resulting in a change of direction. It was the means I used, rightly or wrongly, to move forward with my life. 

In 2020, we are all following the path of — and being shaped by — the action of forces outside of our control. So many of the things we consider to be common elements of our life — simple daily routines of going to work & choices like going to a movie or eating out — have been stripped away as we wait at home. And while we may find it disconcerting, disorienting, and disheartening along the way, we can also use it as an opportunity to examine, reflect, and transform. We are not clowns being shot out of a circus cannon. We can exert an element of control. 

Part of this is just embracing the adage that sometimes the only thing we have control over is our attitude. And I’m all for powering up with a healthy, positive, expectant attitude. But maybe the braver, more robust response I’d like to summon in myself during these weeks at home is to use this as an opportunity for growth. To take some control away from the circumstances, and to pivot in a way that takes me in a new direction. For me, that looks like mining for meaning in a pile of words and using my 58-year-old brain to learn wordpress.com.

Dorothy Gale’s cinematic story ended with her black-and-white return to Kansas, and George Bailey’s with Auld Lang Syne. I know that the lesson she learned was there’s no place like home and what he came to see was that it’s a wonderful life. But isn’t it likely that something from Oz stayed with her, and the voice of Clarence continued to echo with him? I’d like to think that they used their experiences to impact their lives for good. And I hope for the same with ours.

I want to believe that Dorothy grew because she remembered Oz. That George grew because he remembered Clarence. And that we will grow because we remember that this happened.