I am feeling the distance gap today, so very much!!

It has almost been two years since I have been back home to see the family. I don’t know what to say to that when I tell myself that it has been two years. I sometimes forget in an ‘out of sight out of mind‘ way to manage the pain.

Two quick and slow years!!

Covid has caused so much grief and struggles for many people, and I am one of the lucky ones. I have my health, and I have managed to remain gainfully employed as the world works through this upheaval.

I have been fortunate, however being away from my son and daughter for two years has not been plain sailing.

I never thought for a moment that it would be two years. 

It feels bizarre. It feels like my family are a dream, distant, vague, and like they are disappearing from my thoughts daily.

It hurts in a way that I could never imagine, but I will try. It hurts like I would imagine if a polar bear had gnawed off one of your legs – painful, but you can still get by, but something is missing.

It is like they are there, but they are not. Fading and becoming less entangled in my life, and I am but a bit actor for them now, the guy three tables back in the scenes from the cafe in Friends. Things go on in the principal act while I quietly sup my coffee and eat my badly buttered scone in the background. 

Looking on the bright side, I have my health in more ways than one. I have kept strong most of the time because I have kept busy.

By my reckoning, I have another six months left before I can safely take the journey back without any repercussions from the virus or from my employer.

They have been supportive… but also, not!!

So two and a half years in total. Wow, that is a stretch.

I caught my Sons 16th birthday before I left, but I will miss his 18th. I have missed graduations – my daughters, weddings – other people, so many birthdays, and so many different social functions that it is not worth counting. It will make me too sad and down to dwell on that number. I want to stay up… but today, the gap is enormous, so staying up is not easy.

This is the irony. If I was back home, I would try and avoid some of the gatherings as my anxiety, and introverted desires would dig inside my head to work up an excuse to say no.

How often do we say no, or show up half-heartedly to the event and then hop out the door the first chance we get.

Yeah, I think most of us do that at some point in life. We wrestle to show up, and we wrestle with leaving, working hard to body slam the voice in our heads that tells us to stay or go. 

I am going to change that. I am going to say yes more.

When I am asked about my take away from the pandemic situation that we, the world, has stumbled through over the last couple of years, I will say…

I have learned to say YES more because you just never know.

Yip. You. Just. Never. Know.

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