Walking my way through the virtual avenue of coronavirus blogs, vlogs, videos, and guides on how to create a productive, growth-focused quarantine time, I found myself split directly in two. One part of me found a beautiful directive to find centeredness and wholeness through silence, solitude, and spiritual connection. The other side of me was drawn to the opportunity for familial growth in the form of social connection, physical healing, and psychological therapy.
For context, my life has become progressively less centered over the last years and my family has transformed into a significantly more fractured entity. Thus, I was left with a choice. For some, an equal choice. For others, an obvious one: look inwards and heal or look outwards and seek to heal. Both are fraught with uncertainty, but not to equal degrees. Both are noble goals, but arguably not to equal degrees either.
It naturally comes easier to look inwards first, so I asked myself early on, “What is the pathway for internal reflection, analysis, and growth?” The pathway—for me—included an early morning walk, followed by a cup of coffee. That was tailed by a spiritual reading, an academic reading, and a recreational reading. Then I would, optimally, top it off with some creative writing, manuscript writing, and a high-intensity interval workout.
You see, I had this image in my mind of creating a wholesome schedule that fed my body, mind, and spirit. I wanted to enter and own a rhythm dedicated to training skills that I wanted to enhance and introducing new skills that I had never touched before! Further, the discipline required to dedicate to this would inherently stretch my finite capacity to will my goals into existence.
And I was initially successful—during my first week of independent quarantining, I was growing! But then, a foreseeable wrench was thrown into my well-oiled machine as soon as my flight home touched down. Within two days of arriving home, it was revealed to me that my previous noble dedication to self-care and growth was actually a selfish indulgence in personal isolation. This was obviously a frustrating “realization” because I was doing what so many secular friends and spiritual fathers had invited me to do: dig inside, identify growth points, and make a concerted plan. Yet now, I was being told—no, commanded—to scrap it all and focus on my family.
And I couldnʼt refuse them, right? I loved my family, right? More so, I loved the image that I always kept at the edges of my imagination—one of a whole, healthy union of blood brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, mother, and father. An imaginary family that had worked past the interwoven resentments, the physical illnesses, and the psychological pathologies that held us all down.
The pathway—again, for me—included daily, recreational “family hours,” investigations into physical therapy, and conversations around telemedicine-based psychotherapy. It also included conversations about professional aspirations among some of us and retirement plans among others. I was to overturn decades of lost ambition, loveless relationships, and above all, deep-set apathy. As one of the youngest members of the family left in our parentʼs home, I was called to sensitize my ailing family members to their diseases and then cooperatively identify treatment plans.
Now, I will move from “was” to “am.” I am currently overwhelmed. I am responsible for trying to bring change to the stagnancy in a place where the pathway is uncertain, the goal is not universally accepted, and the success rate is unknown (itʼs likely very low). Further, the intention of goodness is simply not enough. Intentions rather than actions have led to the family fractures that exist; now only concrete, consistent, dedicated actions could start a path of healing. So, with a pathway (weakly) set, benefits loosely imagined, and obstacles ignored, I think I have to choose the latter of my two options.
Whether I like it or not, I have been presented with a binary choice: me or them. In more frank terms: be selfish or selfless. It doesnʼt take a significant level of emotional intelligence to identify the tone of the previous paragraphs as a marker of which path my heart would like to take. But again, the only thought echoing within the cavity of my skull is, “will you be selfish or be selfless?” Well, what can I say to that? Iʼm a good Coptic Christian, right? Pray for me, I suppose, as I maybe even find a balance between the two. Likewise, Iʼll be praying for you and your choices in the age of COVID-19.
Anonymous
