HOW ARE YOU COPING WITH THE COVID 19 PANDEMIC?

I can't believe it's more than six months ago now since the lockdown!  How time flies!  September is about to end, and it seems like time passed us by like a breeze while we're unaware just sitting at home.  Was I bored staying home?  Did I feel deprived of my freedom to go anywhere I like?  No, absolutely not! 

Early on, I met an interesting friend and neighbor Tess and we became exercise buddies.  Our common interests in gardening and cooking made wonderful conversations.  From March until the first week of June; when she was able to fly to Rotterdam to join her husband and son, we had been walking and having fun at dawn within our enclave.  Those two months made our adjustment to the lockdown easier and bearable. 

Sans my walking buddy, I still walk every morning for fresh air and sunshine.  I rather enjoy the solitude walking.  I've also made friends along the way who have the same interest in plants and gardening.  

In our attempt to keep safe,  I've limited my going out of the house to a weekly shopping for food at a small grocery; twice a month to the drugstore and once a month to the bank.  

As I tried to count with my fingers the activities that my husband and I were not able to do, I realized that we missed a lot of bonding time with family and friends.   Whether we like it or not this pandemic changed our lives like everybody else.  

We missed trips abroad to visit our children and grandson, 

Friday dinners with my older daughter and her family, 

bonding and shopping lunch at the mall with my 15-year-old granddaughter, 

breakfasts at Starbucks with my husband, 

monthly lunch get-together with our friends, and 

going to church on Sundays, Wednesdays and first Friday's. 

In spite missing the above activities, staying at home was not  difficult for us since we are content staying at home reading, gardening, watching tv and cooking.  

I believe that technology has bridged the bonding gap making isolation easier to bear with FaceTime, zoom, messenger, viber, etc.. Moreover we are able to catch up with most of our friends on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. 

How about you guys, were you bored?  Did you feel deprived not going out much and meeting friends?  Did you miss road trips with your family?  So far, it has been a stressful six months for some of us, we were placed in a situation that made us experience difficult times that we never imagined. 

I learned that some people are having difficulty coping,  bored and restless, some are eager to go back to work, some are even depressed.  I'd say that the easiest way to cope is to accept our predicament and follow protocols to keep ourselves safe. 

On His feast day this week, we are reminded of the famous words of The Blessed Saint Padre Pio: 

"Pray, hope and don't worry.  Worry is useless.  God is merciful and will hear your prayer".