This is such a weird time. I say or think a version of those words every single day, usually more than once. I don’t want to speak for everyone, but at least for me, our world right now seems utterly surreal. I wake up every morning, not to an alarm, but whenever my body wakes me up, and I have to constantly remind myself that these aren’t normal times. There was a time I used to wake up thinking about all the people that I was going to see that day, excited for group or for therapy (yeah, I’m kind of a nerd like that). I would wake up looking forward to teaching the lesson I had planned for my kids or for recess duty on an especially nice day. I would wake up looking forward to being around people, interacting, and doing my job. Except on the days that I didn’t.
You see, that’s how it should be. Most days anyway. But for me, before all of this, I wasn’t waking up looking forward to anything. In fact, waking up and pulling myself out of bed and preparing to fake it through the day was often more than I thought I could handle. I’ve been telling everyone that I miss the structure and routine of my daily life. And I do, in some ways. But in reality, this time of stillness, has been showing me that the structure and routine of my daily life was slowly eating me away from the inside out. This time of stillness has shown me that my “real life” needs to change.
I just finished reading Glennon Doyle’s book, Untamed. I will forever recommend this book to anyone and everyone. I loved it, and I love Glennon, maybe even more than I love Brene Brown and that’s truly saying something. She talks about many different thought-provoking things in her book and in her daily morning meetings that she has started hosting on social media when she had to cancel her book tour because of the pandemic. I would venture a guess that there will be multiple blog posts in the future based on things I’ve learned from her. However, one of the things that has been sticking out to me after reading her book, is the idea of the snow globe.
You’ve seen a snow globe right? I remember as a kid, my Great-Grandma Heater had a snow globe. I would like to pick it up and shake it and then put it down and watch all the snow take over what pretty little figurine was inside until it all settled. I loved to watch the snow swirl around, and I loved when it settled so that I could shake it up again. Glennon talks about our lives, as snow globes. We are constantly shaking our lives up, making the snow swirl around. But instead of snow, it’s actually things that numb or distract us from our lives and our emotions. And instead of a pretty little figurine, it’s your true self and your deepest knowing or intuition. In my regular “real life” life, I had a whole lot of snow swirling around. So much that I rarely ever caught a glimpse of the real me that was sitting somewhere amidst the swirl.
There are a lot of things that we, as humans, do to numb or distract ourselves from our real selves and what we are feeling. For me, it has changed in the past few years. I had negative coping skills that I learned when I was in high school, I had my eating disorder, I had codependence in several close relationships. Those things distracted me from the pain I was feeling and allowed me to continue my life and ignore what was actually happening. There are other things that my snow consisted of as well. Busyness, productivity, perfectionism, and people-pleasing are just a few I can think of off the top of my head. Those are things that seem to be more acceptable in society, even desired, but all those things were distracting me from what was truly going on. I’ve been working hard on recovering from the “snow” that was my eating disorder through treatment and therapy. But I was still easily hiding behind the more desirable “snow,” the everyday things that people think make you a ‘good’ employee or coworker or friend or family member. The constant busyness. Never slowing down. Always ensuring that I was on the go and busy and productive. Never sitting down to relax, or if I did, multitasking so that I was still being productive. Checking in on people, being a listening ear, worrying about others, care-taking. Even as the snow that was my eating disorder was starting to settle, I was adding more and more snow in my globe and didn’t even know it. Until, this weird time happened and everything slowed down. All of a sudden, all the snow that has been swirling around me has settled, and what am I left with? My emotions, my thoughts, my aspirations, my fears...the “real” me. Someone I haven’t truly seen for a really long time, maybe, ever.
Yes, being in treatment settled the snow quite a bit. The most that it has been settled up until now. Especially the second time. But even there, even without my phone, isolated from my real life and the real world, I still spent most of my time unconsciously ensuring that the snow was still flying. I quickly became invested in my fellow patients, working on building friendships and holding space for others’ pain. I let myself create close relationships with the staff, trying to open myself up and be vulnerable. I was working (almost too) hard in therapy and in self-reflection and discovery. I was journaling and reading obsessively. I always had to keep my hands busy with bracelet making or word searches or coloring. But what I didn’t understand until now, is that all those things, even though good has come from them, were still snow. Even in the middle of the desert, the snow was still swirling, and what I was truly thinking and feeling was still obscured.
So here we are. In a world where, unless you’re an essential worker, the snow has mostly settled. I look at my daily life and I don’t recognize it, especially as compared to what it used to look like. I see things on the internet, pictures of empty freeways, wildlife in places usually crowded with people and cars, clearer air, and views that just a few weeks ago people didn’t have because of smog and air pollution. It seems as if the snow is settling everywhere, for almost everyone, and it makes me wonder what will come out of this time, for the world and for me.
My favorite therapist when I was in treatment, explained relapse and recovery to me during our last session together. She said, “You know too much now, Cassie. No matter what you do, even if you go back to your eating disorder and negative coping skills, they’re never going to work as well, they’re never going to feel as good, because now, now you know too much.” I’ll never forget that conversation. I was skeptical at first, as always with my stubborn self. But she was right. All the things I used to do to numb and distract haven’t felt as good or been as successful, because I know what the alternative feels like. I’ve had a glimpse of how it feels to be physically and mentally healthy. I’ve had a glimpse of what it feels like for people to truly see the real me. Now, I know that there’s this person deep down, a real, true, pure self that I have abandoned. A true self that I think I kinda like, and that I think other people in my “real life” would kinda like too if they ever got to meet her.
With these new, clearer views of what’s in the middle of my snow globe, have come some uncomfortable truths. That’s the thing that kind of sucks about all of this. All the realizations that I’m coming to in this time of stillness, I’ll never be able to unlearn them or unsee them. Even if the snow starts to swirl again, I’m never going to be able to pretend that what I’ve discovered during this time is not there. Which is good, I guess. But at the same time, it makes going back to ‘normal’ impossible. This is an equally terrifying and exciting realization. Terrifying, because I think I’m going to have to shake up my life, in a different way, to finally achieve my dreams and follow my passions. Exciting, because well, I’m going to have to shake up my life and maybe in the process, figure out what I’m truly here on this Earth to do.
So here I sit, isolated in my house, dreaming about life “after the pandemic.” Dreaming of being able to see my people again, dreaming of a time I get to stand in my classroom and teach my students face-to-face, a time I can board an airplane to Michigan or Wisconsin or Arizona or Montana to see my people, a time where I can be hugged, a time where I will drive my car back and forth to Des Moines and maybe not complain about it as much because I will get to see my treatment team in person.
One thing I’m not dreaming about? Going back to normal. I hope that I will never go back to what used to be normal again. I hope that this time and all the realizations that have come with it, will shape my future. Most of all, I hope that I will never return to a time where I’m living in the blizzard-like conditions of my snow globe again, but instead, one where I can always clearly see the real me standing inside.