What’s the Alternative

What’s the alternative? My Dad said this all the time.

What’s the alternative?  We’ve all been living with an undercurrent of tension, fear and uncertainty during the past eight months. Maybe longer. Who knows? But this undercurrent, this live wire has been holding steady during the pandemic, the protests and the politics. Some days the current is a low hum, a dull force waiting to get fired up by the next uptick in corona cases, the next nasty political post on the news or the next video of violence in our world. And we all deal with the current differently. Some days we complain, some days we spread light. Some days we are confused and some days we are clear. Some days we are terrified and some days we choose love over fear. 

And some times, we feel all these feels – fear, love, joy, terror, gratitude, scarcity, clarity and confusion in the same day, in the same hour. It’s been a bit of a time lovelies.

But what is the alternative? We are living. We are living this life and feeling everything we are supposed to feel. And Life is teaching us something. Each of us has different lessons. I don’t know yours and sometimes I don’t know mine. But I do know that Life teaches us in every moment and in every feeling. So when we are living this big, beautiful, scary and joyful life, we are going to experience everything. That’s life lovelies. And I don’t say that lightly. Life is all these things. It is beauty and it is ugly. And we get to live it. Because we are living. What’s the alternative? We know the answer.

So. During all of it, I’ve been trying to care for my heart in any way I can. Somedays it’s a morning phone call with my friend. Somedays it’s listening to old Madonna. On weekends, Hubs and I have been purging our garage, our basement, our closet, our entire home of 23 years worth of Little People toys, waffle makers and gardening tools that look like they were made in 1947. We purge and find comfort in the clarity and control it brings us. And it heals our hearts.

Somedays I watch Ted Lasso. Ted and Coach Beard and Roy Kent heal my heart. And watching Bruce Springsteen’s new movie about a lifetime of music and friends heals my heart. And some days cooking heals my heart. And some days doing absolutely nothing and eating too many pecan sandies heals my heart. And some days nothing heals my heart. And it just hurts. And that’s life lovelies. And I’ll take it.

Life is for the living. We are alive. We can feel it all and we can make it through this time. We can and we will. What’s the alternative?