Evaluating My Roles

 I had a eureka moment recently, after a year of being limited in what I could and could not do I lost the understanding that as a Catholic I am meant to live my life intentionally.  Quarantine put a stop to many activities and I (like most people) gave up without a fight.  Overwhelmed with distance learning I have been living in survival mode and have neglected so many parts of my life.  One of those has been my role as a Catholic.  When the churches were closed I struggled having to give up all the things that give my soul sustenance, but as time went on I got used to not having to go to Mass on Sunday. I got used to not being able to go pray inside a parish or attend any of the many activities that I used to participate in.  Now that everything is opening up again, I find myself struggling with leaving my house.  I got so used to being at home trying to survive that entering the world and adding more activities is giving me anxiety- even if those activities are things that nurture my being.

The closer to the inside = Underperforming. I am only extraordinary in my eBay business.

As I have reflected on my identity as a Catholic I realized that currently I am underperforming and I think that I am not the only one.  This quarantine has taken away from each of us so much, while for me it has only been activities that filled me up – I am struggling with entering back into the real world and not hiding behind a Zoom meeting.  In my social media I see people entering the world doing all sorts of fun things and I am having difficulty leaving my house.  I have gotten so used to being home that even attending Mass gives me anxiety. 

I find myself thinking how did I do all the things that I did prior to COVID?  What I have realized is that life is meant to be lived intentionally.  Before the pandemic I lived my life doing things that made me a better a human being- I wasn’t focused on just surviving.  While distance learning still takes a lot energy, leaving me feeling like I just want to vegetate in front of the television to distract me from the anxiety that teaching virtually gives me, I need to start trying to bring normalcy back into my days.  At first doing things that required no effort before might be nerve wrecking, but as they become habits the nerves will vanish.  I kept criticizing myself for having such a difficult time making Sunday Mass a routine again, but now I know that it’s normal to feel anxious about change- even if that change is good for me.  I think building up my life again post quarantine will have it’s struggles and it’s ok to have those negative feelings, but the secret is not to dwell in the anxiety, but to work with it to slowly start living not just to survive, but intentionally as God intended.