Kia ora,
It’s been a while. Almost pre-March 2020 lockdown in New Zealand to be somewhat exact
It’s been a rough road for many and continues to be a difficult time. It’s a time to encourage grace and kindness for not only others, but ourselves too – are you not sleeping properly? Are you worrying more? Are you more irritable? Are you tired all the time? Well, you’re not alone and you’re completely justified, I’m not sure if you know this but there’s a global pandemic occurring. This is the type of situation that they talk about in history books, they refer back to it in that one class at high school where you probably don’t even pay attention anyway, but they say thousands of people died and that seems unfathomable to your teenage self, you are shown photos and data but you don’t really get it, it sounds like a bad time, but it’s not happening to you.
Well now it is. This is a real thing happening. It is no wonder your body is stressed! Your body and brain know what you may not have realised yet, but you are living through a world crises that only happens ever once in a hundred years.
Not only that, but you’re being inundated with and constantly exposed to other horrific occurrences within the world; almost experiencing world ward 3, realising only a small extent of child trafficking and it’s heavy influence by world leaders and celebrities, realising the effects of the patriachy and attempting to confront the racist and fatphobic content you’ve been consuming since birth etc.
To be honest, it’s also a privilege to be worried about these things, it’s not my experience, but the experience of some people is literally just worry about how they’re going to put food on the table for their families now that they’ve been made redundant in a non-essential job. Or their job is essential, but they are worried about being exposed to the virus in their workplace knowing that their 81yo mother is at home and needs care or their 3yo has asthma and has already been hospitalised four times.
One of the things that has also been effecting me and that I’ve been discretely working on is vulnerability.
Crazy I know; I’m all for holding space for others to be vulnerable and encouraging this, yet I realised I rarely let my guard down myself.
So just to put it out there, through this pandemic I’ve been going through a prolonged relationship break down.
It’s really sad, and it’s really difficult, and I realise I’ve never actually been heartbroken before this. It might be a bit shocking as well for you if you have come off the back of my Miscarriage series which was with this same partner. Although it was from two years ago, I firstly shared the series because I wanted to ensure that my first piece of writing that opened my eyes back up to writing was included in my blog, the second reason being (ironically) that I didn’t know what else to say in the midst of all this other crap occurring.
I won’t talk about it in this post, as it really needs it’s own separate discussion to unpack, but the main take home messages are:
- Things are shit at the moment (for me AND you) and your experiences are totally valid i.e. if you feel like shit it’s cause things are shit
- Be gentle to yourself and engage in self-care e.g. walks, showers, baths, meditation, gaming if that’s your buzz – whatever it is that is just for you
- Reach out if you need help
- Practice some vulnerability O.O
This is still happening, we don’t know when it will end, but we will get through at some stage – I don’t know what state we’ll be in at the end but we will get through
Brittany Tasesa 