How to survive & thrive with an uncertain future during the COVID-19 pandemic

Many of us are staying home these days: abruptly working from home, or suddenly unemployed because of the COVID-19 global pandemic. We don’t know when this pandemic will end.

I listen to my friends try to describe this emotional unrest they’re feeling, and I know the word they’re reaching for: limbo.

Brock and I lived in limbo for three years after his terminal cancer diagnosis, not knowing how much time we had left together, and — in those final months — not knowing what he’d be capable of physically, hour by hour.

Those years taught me some basic survival skills that not only kept me sane, but also allowed me to grieve the pre-cancer life we’d lost, and even enjoy moments of our new life and be happy in the time we had left together.

Here’s what I learned:

Limbo tip #1: When the walls close in, push back

Living in limbo can be mentally overwhelming. The world may start to close in on you. Do what you can to push back by reaching out and connecting with other people, either by having a social-distancing friendly visit (if that’s still allowed in your community), on the phone or virtually.

Being restricted and staying home has made me realize how easy it is to reconnect with long-distance friends. Thanks to Facetime, Facebook messenger, Zoom, Skype, or any of the many online tools available to us, my friend in another time zone and my friend down the road are both just a video call away.

There are online fitness and yoga classes, live-streamed music concerts, conferences and workshops to help us connect, from home, with real-life people in real time.

Limbo tip #2: Keep track of the days

It’s the dungeon cliche: scratched lines on the walls, counting the days. If we don’t track time, our days blur together and the walls start closing in.

I started keeping a daily journal on March 16. My son woke up with a cough and fever, so we isolated ourselves at home for fourteen days. But I’m a writer, and writing is how I deal with life events.

If lengthy, detailed accounts of your days aren’t your style, try just writing down the date and the weather each day. Scribble daily notes on that now-useless calendar. Maybe list the people you connected with, or Netflix shows you watched. The food you ate. Your mood. Whatever the big news was locally or nationally.

Why do this? Tracking our days helps us feel in control of time passing. It also provides a historical record that you might be glad to have and look back on someday, or to pass on to your grandkids.

Limbo tip #3: Let yourself grieve the loss

This global pandemic is impacting our daily lives in breathtaking ways. Whatever we’d expected for 2020, this is not it. I gave up on my hard-copy calendar a week ago: I was tired of crossing off planned adventures.

My neighbour Juli was supposed to take her family to Disneyland for Alice’s birthday last weekend. My friend Laura’s new job may or may not start in two weeks. Some friends on Vancouver Island had scaled up their farm, preparing to exponentially increase their wholesale accounts this year: now they’re trading butchered livestock for groceries and gin.

It’s natural for us to grieve these upset plans and losses. Some of these dreams might just be postponed, while others will be forfeited.

As a widow, the best way I’ve found to process grief is to share stories, and let yourself cry about the loss. But it’s important to purge and move on, rather than wallow. So find a friend to trade stories with: your cancelled marathon, their kid’s prom fantasy. Swear and cry it out, if you need to. Then find a new topic for discussion.

When I was taking care of Brock in his final months, I found it hard to let out my grief. I was trying to be perky and brave for my family. But tears are cathartic, so I watched sad movies alone: Still Alice helped all those stifled tears flow, and I felt better afterward.

Limbo tip #4: Short-term pleasures vs. long-term projects

There’s pressure out there to use this time to finally learn that musical instrument, or attempt every recipe in the cookbook, et cetera.

There are also the memes about how we’re all drinking our way through this pandemic, lounging in our jamjams and binge-watching Netflix.

For my own time in caregiving limbo, I found it helpful to have a combination of short-term pleasures and long-term plans:

Give yourself a horizon to aim at

One day, when the denial lifted and I understood Brock would die relatively soon, I sat down with a pen and paper and listed what made me happy and what I wanted my future self to be doing.

Highlights included physical activity, and time with my sister and parents. I realized this “Plan B” life meant moving back to my hometown: I discussed the idea with Brock, and he agreed it was a good plan.

Then I stopped thinking about the long-term, and focused on making the most of our days together. When Brock died, I just shifted into autopilot and started packing.

I needed to have this long-term plan in place so that I could stop worrying about the future.

Our current future, post-pandemic, is uncertain. But we can still take a moment to assess what we’d like that future to include. If anything, living without simple luxuries like coffee shops and birthday parties might help us redefine what’s important to us.

And, when you know what you want your future to look like, you might choose to make small changes now.

… and/or, revel in the staycation

We’ve been asked/told to stay home. In Canada, our government is financially subsidizing this staycation. For those of us between adolescence and retirement, this is an incredible, mid-life opportunity to chill out.

So why not abandon the calendar and clock, and tap back into our circadian rhythm? Eat and sleep when we want to? Sit in the sunshine when it’s hot, or drink hot chocolate if it’s raining outside?

Why not binge-watch Netflix? Celebrate happy hour with friends online?

Maybe having this free time means we can immerse ourselves in that artistic project, or research and write up the business plan to take our passion to the next level. We can finally complete those online courses, to up our professional game. Teach the kid to pedal a bicycle. Learn to make lemon meringue pie from scratch.

This is a very extended long weekend. It’s okay to give ourselves a break.

Limbo tip #5: Most importantly: be kind to yourself

In limbo, our energy levels fluctuate dramatically. Some days, you might only have the energy to lift that remote: other days you’re doing push ups, updating your LinkedIn profile and downloading Duolingo so you can learn Welsh.

Trauma, change, loss and grief are challenging life experiences, and that is what we are dealing with now. Be kind to yourself.

Someday, this state of limbo will end. We’ll have a vaccine, or will somehow adapt to a new normal. We just have to get through this limbo stage.

(This story was published on Medium.com by Invisible Illness.)

More thoughts on the plague by Heather McLeod:

“COVID-19 Has Changed How I Write My Book“

“Maybe This is a Different Kind of Adventure“

I started recording our days on March 16, 2020. To read my Pandemic Diaries, click here.