Late May was always the best part of the year. School was almost over, my birthday was coming, the weather was indescribably inviting, you could feel the freedom just around the corner that waited for you. You knew backyard barbecues, clay courts, mourning doves, lightning bugs, Arnold Palmers and long, lazy days of chill time were almost yours. Good summers often included a beach trip with friends or cousins. There were tumbling waves, great books and hours upon hours to read them, ambling aimlessly along and gawking at all the weird sites of the boardwalk, taking respite from the heat during the late afternoon with rounds of Clue or Blockhead and sometimes a sunset swim.
And then there were the jellyfish. They bobbed along, dumb as dirt, directionless but ready to sting if you brushed near. That’s me right now. I am the jellyfish. In my low moments, I am aimless and snappy and my mind might be approaching mud.
When the quarantine started in mid-March, we were still focused, somewhat purposeful, buzzing along like a vibrant ecosystem. We had exercise regimes, called friends to talk about how odd quarantine was, reveled in not commuting or getting up early to catch the school bus. Over the last few months, the ecosystem has puttered to a faint hum at best.
I invited Clara to walk with a best friend, and she shied away from it. The last time they had tried, they conversation went like this:
Girl 1: “What’s up?”
Girl 2: “Nothing.”
Girl 1: “Yeah.”
Girl 2: “Are you going on vacation this summer?”
Girl 1: “No…[pause]. Have you seen so-and-so?”
Girl 2: “No…”
Finn tried doing some zoom calls with best buddies. After making up goofy name labels for his friends and enjoying host superpowers like “Mute All,” they too got sick of sitting there looking at each other when they wanted to play water gun games or basketball. Sitting still is for the birds–or something like that.
Tatum, the new teen, is desperate to flee the coop. Where to? It doesn’t matter. Anywhere that does not involve seeing any other family members for at least a week.
I learned a new word last week: hypostress. Hypostress is “the stress which is caused by boredom or lack of motivation,” according to Collins English Dictionary. I can see how this is a real thing. I have found that all the joy has been sucked out of activities that used to keep me grounded. Following a prerecorded pilates class online, daily quiet time for scripture, watching a movie…none of it is nearly as inspirational solo as in community.
However, to fight the jellyfish problem, I must take action. This is important so that I don’t sting my poor family members inadvertently with irritability, lose my ability to think and blob around directionless forever. Three points of guidance to mind.
- Emma, one of my dearest friends, had sage advice for me when she moved from Indonesia back to Wales. She saw me remaining as waves of friends left again, and she saw me wilting. She said, “Stay engaged. You won’t feel like it, and I know you’re tired of trying and trying again, but you have to keep putting yourself out there. You have to stay engaged. You will rise again and you will make new friends.” She gave me this advice along with a wooden tea tray and a sardonic but gentle laugh, these being my future goodbye-Jakarta presents–in case I didn’t actually have any friends left when I departed.
- My mentor and I co-wrote a book in 2014. Our motto–Marilou’s advice to me–provided the motivation that helped us meet the manuscript deadline: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Zoom and my trusty mask will be my new good.
- James tells us very clearly that staying away is the antithesis of relationship. “Draw near to God,” James tells us, “and he will draw near to you” (James 4:9). Without small group meetings, bible study or worshiping as a body, I have let my jellyfish self bob dumbly away even from God. This is the worst kind of loneliness of all, and yet it is entirely fixable without even so much as a mask.
And so, I renew my commitment to staying engaged, having things be good enough and drawing near–to God in spirit and to family and friends in socially distant ways. And I know this biblical guidance is very specific to COVID-19 times because James follows the “draw near” mandate immediately with instructions to “Cleanse your hands.”
-Written for The Redeemer Spirit, August 2020 edition.
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