Facing the Future by Remembering The Past

A heads up: this post includes some discussion of a book that takes a deep dive into COVID's affect on those who experienced the pandemic, especially in the second part of the book.  It may hit too close to home for some.  The research this author did for this book, incidentally, is outstanding. So onward to my thoughts:

A few days ago, I finished reading a book by Jodi Picault called "Wish You Were Here". It's my first book by her, and if this is like her other works, it won't be my last. (I hope the next one doesn't disappoint - I've had that happen with prolific writers).  

In a nutshell (because if I revealed the plot, it would have to contain a major spoiler), two 30-somethings, Diana and Finn, have their entire lives planned.  They will marry, buy a house, get a particular breed of dog, have two children, and visit a list of places.  Diana is an associate art specialist at a major New York City auction house.  Finn is a surgical resident at a major Manhattan hospital. 

Their careers are both on track.

Diana and Finn have purchased tickets to visit the Galapagos Islands, where Diana suspects that Finn will propose to her. It's the trip of their lifetimes.  It took them four years to save up.  They are supposed to leave in mid-March, 2020.

And then....COVID.  Everything changes, and the book is an examination of life during the first months of the pandemic from several different angles.  The book, for me, was a wrenching, emotional experience.

I had forgotten so much about those months.  Perhaps we all have, in a kind of mutually agreed on amnesia.  We don't want to remember.  We think, perhaps, that forgetting will make it easier to move on.  Or maybe we still deny it never happened.  Denial can be a type of forgetting, too.

But we need to look inward and to document our experiences.  We should ask ourselves, in that review, if our actions are making the world, or at least our neighborhood, a better place.

Are we bringing happiness to others?  Do our words, our writing, our photography, our volunteer work, our paid work, bring meaning to us?  Joy, or another positive thing, perhaps, to others?

This book stayed with me after I turned the last page. I stayed in its world.  As harrowing as what was presented could be, I didn't want to let go.

Those books are the best kinds of books.

But other things happened while I was reading the book.

Hydrangeas, Ross Park, Binghamton, 8-20-22

While I was reading the book, I read a blog post by a fellow midlife (or later) blogger, Laura, who has written candidly on her blog about various challenges in her life.  She considers some of her health challenges a gift, teaching her to look at others with compassion.  One of her latest posts bluntly discusses "What It's Like to Age Faster than my Friends".

Here is the blog post, and I invite all my readers to read and ponder it.

It seems to me (and many other people I've read) that we in the United States have become more selfish.  Less caring of our neighbors and community.  Some have turned to social media with posts and thoughts that will terrify you.

Finally, a man I went to high school with, the life partner of a friend of many years, and a man who fought his years long battle with cancer with grace and courage, would have turned 69 on Sunday.  But he passed away recently, so, instead, his birthday was marked with remembering the good man he was.

We are all granted a number, the number of breaths we will take in our individual gardens of life.  Most of us don't know that number.  But some of us do. I have been blessed by a lifetime longer than that of many people on this Earth, including my mother, and several "in real life" friends who passed in their 50's and 60's.  In a couple of years, I will be as old as my father was.  

Both my parents passed suddenly.  Here one day and gone the next. Both had health challenges that impacted their life spans.

So what am I doing with the years and health I've been blessed with?  Have I tended my garden of life?  Or is it getting overgrown with weeds, drooping in a drought brought on by not enough of the rain called self love?

We live in perilous times.  Anxious times.  But that makes self care, and finding meaning, even more important.

It may be time to reexamine our lives once again, and remember what we've been through in the pandemic times.

If we forget the past, we won't have a roadmap to the future.  History teaches us that without a roadmap, things never end well.  

What road will we choose?