The Journey vs. The Destination

I started rereading a book in which the main character dies at the end.  I didn't love the book the first time around; the tension and uncertainty kept me from enjoying the story and the writing. This time, I know the end, and even though the end is sad, I can still enjoy what leads up to it.

That's the problem with this whole quarantine/death virus situation. I don't know how - or when - it ends. Minus the virus thing, this is actually a pretty cool time for an anxiety-ridden introvert like me. All my people are home - no car accidents or school shooters to worry about. The kids aren't stressed about school. We're not darting from one activity to the next. I'm getting enough sleep for the first time in 12+ years. We're cooking at home every night, and eating together as a family, which only ever happened on weekends before.

Last night, we went out for a walk after dinner, all 5 of us. We saw swans on the water, beavers swimming and slapping their tails, ducks, and a beautiful sunset.

We never have time, energy, or ambition for things like that regularly.

I'm crocheting more again (now that my hands stopped hurting for the time being) and maybe will actually finish the blanket I started like 2 years ago (pre-hand issues). The house is slowing getting purged of all our accumulated junk.

It's all good - except for the fear of any of us leaving the house and catching a virus that could kill us. There's no real rhyme or reason as to who is ending up in ICU and who is dying, not really.

I can't enjoy the journey because I don't know the destination. There's no end point. There's no flipping to the end to see what happens - preferably that we all come out of this ok - so I can relax. There's all this good around me, but it's blocked by the fear and uncertainty.

My goal is at least to acknowledge the good, even if I can't fully enjoy it, so when I look back on this time it's not all bad. Just like I took thousands of pictures of the kids when they were babies, and when I look back on that I don't see the busy, exhausted, stressed-out, vomit-covered life we led, but the smiles and the cuteness, and the thousands of moments of good sprinkled in every day.

On that note, I should probably charge my camera and start making a point of taking more pictures of now, too. So when we finally get wherever this leads, I can look  back and see that it wasn't all bad.