Some Days Are Easy, Others Not So Much.

At the end of the day, life goes on and doesn’t wait around for anyone. I am pretty sure that is from a movie or book or something, but either way it’s true. No matter what, I need to plan lessons for my students and complete assignments for my masters class. Those just have to happen. Zoom meetings with my coworkers and my students every Sunday through Thursday, got to love time differences. I can’t just hide away and hope everything will just magically figure itself out, no matter how desperately I wish that would work. Life goes on and I need to go with it.

On the outside… I laugh. I smile. I go for walks. I go for bike rides. I go grocery shopping. I watch movies with my family. I help make family meals. I watch home renovation videos on YouTube with my husband. I have Zoom or FaceTime calls with friends all over the world. I work on my masters class. I teach my students. On the outside, under the current circumstances, I seem to be doing pretty great. Key word “seem”.

But on the inside… I silently sob alone mere moments before I need to start my daily Zoom call with my students. Why am I crying? At this point it seems harder to find reasons not to cry. I miss my students. I miss our classroom. I miss playing fun music as the kids enter the room each morning. I miss all the silly little moments throughout our day together. Key word “together”. I miss my friends and coworkers and everyone I get to do life with in China. God, I miss China. I feel so many things and at the same time nothing at all. It breaks my heart every time a student asks in our calls, “Mrs. Kane, when are we going to go back to school? I miss my friends and my teachers!” Oh sweetheart, I so badly wish I could answer your question with, “soon”. Instead, I simply reply, “I don’t know”.

There are days where even on the inside, I really do feel okay. But all it takes is one little thing and down the sorrow-filled rabbit hole I go. It affects every aspect of my life. I have little or no desire to spend time with my husband or family. I don’t want to take care of myself. I don’t feel like eating. I don’t want to work on teaching stuff or masters assignments. I don’t want to have meetings with my students. Getting out of bed to do anything feels like the biggest struggle. I have internal battles with myself over whether or not taking a “day off” is really what I need or if I’m just using it as an excuse to slack off and not do the things that I need to get done. Am I really benefiting my mental health or am I just perpetually procrastinating?

I know many people will message me telling me that God is in control and it will all workout in his timing. I get that. In my head I know He is in control. But in my heart, I’m tired. For months we’ve been praying things will go back to normal and things will get easier. I know His timing is best, but man I would love nothing more than for His timing to just hurry up already.

Basically, at the end of the day… some days are easy, others not so much. I’m trying to move on with my life and not let this whole coronavirus thing “win” so to speak. But I don’t want to sugar coat it, I’m struggling. I truly have joy filled moments, but the not so joyful moments don’t just get me down, they tear me down.

I want to end with some sort of hopeful message. But to be completely honest, I just don’t feel very hopeful today. I know I’ll get out of this highly emotional rut eventually, but today is just not that day.