Welcome to Bugs in Life

I had one of those inspirational mornings yesterday. A foot of snow. A day before my sister's birthday. A text from a friend as we discuss how to walk through this pandemic. She texted me an image of a woman, calm, hair on fire, just walking. And an article from Swimming World about being defined by your bad days. An article that took me to memories in pools that I had. Tears I felt and walls I barely was able to rest on. And records and goals that I missed by 0.01 seconds. And never made.

And this growing narrative as I watch the mental health in this country spiral out of control. This fact that we- the health care worker- are traumatized. I have cried with more patients, families, and clinicians in the last 18 months than I ever have in my life.

Covid has been a major literal and metaphorical bug in my life. With it my sister and her family have moved to Poland. My dad is dealing with the likely diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in my mom. My 3 boys under 4 at one time has transitioned rapidly into 2 in college. Covid took my father-in-law and many friend’s family members. But it has divided us as well, I have written about it as I tried to sift through the politics to share the facts as I see them. Helping my masters team stay in the water and swim, trying to keep the kids in school. Helping the community do the best risk math they can do. Because in the end Covid has always been a small piece of RNA.

I have wanted to take my musings off of Facebook – for a lot of reasons. Their speech patrol, their marketing. I have wanted to create a space where readers could choose to go if they wanted. 

So with appreciation for my snow day, in honor of my sister on the eve of her birthday who I love dearly, I am taking the posts and random ID and life musings to the blogosphere.

Bugs in life can be about the Staphylococcus aureus that settled on the pacer leads that had stably been in place for 5 years or the Borrelia burgdorferi that was missed and treated as a cellulitis/skin infection instead of Lyme. 

The bug can be a glioblastoma, leukemia, ALS in a perfectly healthy human until the day before the diagnosis. 

Or the mental sanity of a little being not responding well to virtual school. 

Or a rescued cat who is in heart failure and forgets the rules of the litter.

Or voles in your bulbs.

Or that unvaccinated family member who was healthy now struggling with supportive oxygenation and Covid.

Bugs in life can also be that diagnosis of Alzheimers.

They can be those friends who love you but don’t see you. Or have tired of you.

They can certainly be the coach who doesn’t see that your getting to practice is a far bigger feat than they respect; only judging the intensity, never that first intent.

And even the swimmer who simply refuses to respect the 5 second rule. Enough times? It is a bug.

So this is my first entry with my thoughts as to why I am still mostly sane with all of these bugs in life. And this is where I plan to write about them.

This article totally resonated with me. Not because today is a bad day—- but because I am off and I can lounge around with a cup of coffee, listening to the shoveling outside. Thinking about where we are.

But I had this day two weeks ago and countless other times these past 18 months. Though two weeks ago was the first time I thought of quitting. And I love what I do and who I work with and so often who I care for- despite their good and bad choices. 

So why didn’t I?

How, when we know how fragile the sanity of health care workers is at this time, am I doing ok?

Honestly? 

I pull it right out of the bank of resilience

For my athletes who don’t know why they are still working so hard when they aren’t good enough for a scholarship? It’s because when you learn how to give everything and lose, or train perfectly and not make that time- or tear your ACL and miss the end of the season—— you realize that you are much stronger than you thought.

When you travel and get lost in a place where you cannot speak the language and burst into tears but somehow get to that next day or better map—— you realize the same. You are building your internal compass.

When you are in the middle of the swamp leading a bunch of campers for team comp and have no idea how to get to the end and everyone is looking to you to lead, you put the tiniest camper on your shoulders, brave the mosquitoes and keep walking. Eventually. Maybe hours later. Eventually you get back. 

We are wondering about anxiety and are so fearful for our kids. But this I know: almost all of the adults in my life have resilience. We have done hard things. We are stronger because we never would have done them had we realized how hard they were. 

Stop showing paralysis in this pandemic and start walking. That’s what our kids need to see. 

Healthy adults moving in uncertainly.

Not shutting it down.

Not shaming all the people who don’t know their way through the swamp.

And certainly not chastising the ones who trained their entire careers for a time and a record that they missed by 1/100th of a second. It wasn’t a wasted season, or career—-there was still purpose.

Keep your kids doing their hard stuff and don’t think for a second they aren’t getting anything from it. 

Maybe it is training them for life, building their compass.

Sports or life skills. Travel for life skills. Getting lost or dumped or getting an F is a life skill.

Because there will be another “pandemic” in their lives. And there are much harder tough spaces than mine were. 

Just keep walking through it.

Want to read the Swimming World article? You can find it here.