I feel like Princess Elizabeth, you know, of the Paper Bag variety. NOT of Buckingham Palace! I feel like the past decade was myself vs the dragon! Only I could manage to survive the first burning down of my life, and all the contents; to then a decade later straighten my paper bag dress, step up to the microphone to share my not so regal story. Then watch with symphonic timing the COVID-19 dragon breathe its fury and try to decimate the regrowth of a new life beginning to emerge from the ashes of raising my 5 siblings, running a business to support them and being permanently worn out and spread too thin!
As our corner of the world is set to move into phase 2 of the world living with COVID-19 I laughed to myself when I realized I may be a real life paper bag princess! My life this past decade already felt alien, with one insane twist after another. Yes, my life comes complete with a complimentary fire breathing dragon that torched my life all the way down to the bare threads! In reflection, I guess my decade of life with sibling-kids and running a business before the madness was my pandemic training! I'm sure from above someone whispered... If she can survive this... she's ready for the pandemic. So, the test begun. Like everyone else... ready or not! The dragon circled back for a second huff and puff!
But this time... I straightened my paper bag dress, fixed my tinsel crown and stared right back into those fiery eyes and said... "En Garde!" and wielded a smile and clutched my "how to survive raising kids during a pandemic manual" and got to it!
Oh, How I've been trained this past decade. You name it, I've probably been through it! So, when the world collectively sent us for a timeout I simply carried on with my life as I have come to know it. I pulled out all the stops! I did not come this far, fight this hard, work ferociously to grow a business to independantly support this gigantic life to watch it all be ceremoniously ripped from our hands! Not now, not ever! I am a fighter! I go the distance and I believe in the value of a hard day's work! So come hell or high water this will not be how our story ends.
So, with my fighting spirit leading the way I blindly told everyone to follow me...I've got this guys! As I silently hoped that this would be true! Can I do this again ? The pressure on my shoulders is huge from protecting the kids, Annie and my staff the best way I can. While trying to do the best for everyone's unique situation. I have always given my all! So, over my dead body is some little bug going to come in and re-destroy a DECADE of putting pieces back together! I was so busy putting out little fires and making sure everyone had what they needed. I didn't have time to feel much of anything about the impact of the changes around me! As those weeks rolled on I was in full dragon slaying mode. No time to react, join in the global melt down... it was dragon time!
Eventually the fallout started to make landfall! Wow, it stung! Not even gonna lie and say that it was not hard to take even when I know from all the years of persevering that "this too shall pass"! This is my life's work! This one stung differently because I was finally beginning to feel the breeze of better days! In all things I look for the silver lining... the lesson. After some time of reflection on my most memorable and depressing VID moments to date, my frustration at the people who waited for a pandemic to even check to see if we were ok... into the now smouldering piles of singed dreams, frazzled spirits and one worn out sister mom here is what I have learned in this pandemic.
Something shifted... yet again!
This pandemic has reminded me how strong I have become. In fact it hit me like an anvil to the head. While so many people were adjusting to life with abrupt changes, loss of income, lack of savings, uncertainty and a lot of finger pointing of responsibility... I realized how much my own adversity had conditioned me not to panic because for so many years I was not heard and few people actually cared how we have lived and survived our solitary family pandemic for a decade!
We existed silently and anonymously for a decade in our paper bag world that was torched as far as the eye could see. For years I hovered over that charred landscape and wondered if anything would ever grow again in our lives again. For a decade the world along with people so close it nearly did me in never picked their heads up out of their own lives and noticed. Why? because it wasn't their life on fire. It was ours.
It took a pandemic to shake people around us and the globe, to reflect. It shouldn't take a world pandemic to show care and compassion! It takes the fear of loosing what isn't truly important for people to hopefully begin to cling tighter to what does. The biggest sting of this pandemic for me is not the isolation (though I miss Annie hugs and visits terribly), not the giving up of physical things, not surviving with less but the knowledge that is revealed during times of uncertainty. This pandemic turned on the spotlight for all of us!
For myself, I have seen many people's painful but true colours along my journey in my own paper bag pandemic long before the VID came to town. For years my heart was broken by this in to fragments so small I didn't know it was possible! I forged on. These past few months just reminded me to let go of some more, embrace the next chapter and know with my whole heart that timing is always divine! I had a decade to be ready and I am proud to say that I did the work to stand in the storm and not be consumed by it!
It has shown me who is who in my world. It has cleared my closet of skeletons from relationships that were never truly in my corner, it showed the integrity of my clients, it cast a shadow on people's moral compass', it revealed to me so much that has nothing to do with the bug itself. COVID-19 may be the news of the decade, but in my decade it is yet another traumatic gift that helped me realign myself further into the places and relationships I should be in. The VID clearly is showing me the ones that needed to go. So, true to form... this means that COVID-19 along with all its destruction and fear is also leaving behind a clearer path to what matters and what next steps need to happen to get there!
So, if its possible to be thankful for a bug, and for all the tragedy it has caused then I choose to be thankful the lessons that I have been reminded of in the past months. I am choosing to see my sad moments, my tearful winces and my exasperation in the past month as a reminder of my own strength. I am surviving, we are surviving and that is what matters most! The people in my corner have what they need.
(September 2012 Birthday)
I will continue to use this time to make sure that in each relationship that remains and the new ones that bloom from this experience are stronger and even more deeply rooted in what matters most in life! What matters most is the magical place where dreams come true and that is the place I want to be! COVID-19 may have arrived to scare this Paper Bag Princess but these days have pushed me to work harder to build the life that I see so vividly in my mind. COVID may have arrived to put the fear in me but now it can stay as long as it needs because there is something that cannot be taken from this Paper Bag Princess and that is my determination to make it work no matter what!
-Marina
( May 2020 - One of the many "Face time" calls we've shared with sweet Annie from her perch! She has been so amazingly well cared for by incredibly caring LC staff in my absence! She comes to the window to get as close as we can and snaps her shot! These people are what makes me stare each dragon square in the eye with a smile and twinkle in my eye!)
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