I'm a Good Friday Personality Living amongst Easter People.

Easter has not been the same since 2018. There is something tragically ironic about being hit by a car the day before a holiday that celebrates Resurrection. In 2018, N and I planned to spend Easter with our friends. Instead, I was in an out of a drug stupor, contacting people about my injuries. Fine, whatever, those are the facts. Then I buried my grief and fear and anger into my recovery, and eventually training for Race Across the West. I unapologetically threw myself into anything, living or stationary, that would help me forget that period of isolation and pain. In 2019, I trained for the relay portion of RAW - one hour on the bike as hard as I could, one hour off spent sleeping or mobilizing - just for twelve hours. But the agony in my quads and my brain squelched the ache in my heart.

Because it hurts. I don't really want to dive into those feelings - some are documented in this space, others aren't. It hurts to remember, and all I know is that I remember things with the mind of a steel bear trap. And Easter was the day that I was in horrible pain. Easter was the day that my actions in Kentucky affected those who I love. Easter was the day that marked the beginning of the end of my relationship with my church. Easter was the day that the great suffering of two years began. So, as it my tendency as a very fickle human, I want to not feel those emotions: fear, pain, anger, guilt, loneliness.

The day before Easter this year, I hiked 8 miles at the state park with N and Cam - socially distant, of course! I got a wee sunburn on my neck. It was a magnificent day, such a day that I did not bother with my phone or photos of any kind. Before work, I read N an article from Julio Vincent Gumbuto, titled "Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting." If you've not read it, you should. There is quite a bit of information there for multiple subjects and thoughts. One of the big points that stuck out to me was how he named this pandemic the Great Pause. Not unlike the Great Depression, or World Wars, or the Recession of '08... this has been given a name, in which the world stood still. It's a terrifying time, to be sure.

That feeling you have right now is the same as if you’d been thrown off your ... bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause.

But the part that precedes the naming of the Great Pause? The, "What in the holy fuck just happened?" I've been there before. In the brief second of flight as the momentum from the car passed to my soft, squishy body. In the horrifying moment of blinding clarity as I tried to crawl off the road. The pin-point tunnel vision in the hospital, staring at my CT scan. In the bitterly cold, gray morning of Easter the following day. What in the holy fuck...

I have already had my version of the Great Pause. Forcing myself to get up every morning and make a wholesome breakfast so that my body would heal. Forcing myself to shower so that I wouldn't rot. Forcing myself to walk to the end of the driveway, then to the half mile mark, then to the mile, and then the two mile markers from our house. Forcing myself to be social, even though sometimes people only wanted to talk about how miserable they were, because the reality of my grief made them too uncomfortable. Forcing myself to go to physical therapy in spite of the pain and water walking in spite of the shame. Forcing myself to go to work, even though I couldn't do anything but observe and clean. All of that, despite wanting to just die.

There was something to focus on, though: I channeled my disappointment, anger and fear into a mission. Should I chose to accept it - and I did, with my very being, in every way that I could. But it caused me to re-enforce the idea that if I just bucked up, I'd be fine. And I never was. I've been patching myself back together, rewiring my brain...

So in 2020, whilst my friends and family and colleagues are scrambling in the aftermath of their what the holy fuck? moment, I vacillate between an exasperated impatience and a simple FOMO. Like I said, I've been here before - I've done harder things before.

I'd like to think that the Great Pause is my second chance. I do not regret the strength and perseverance that I've grown into through the physical and emotional rehabilitation. 


And yet. 

I'd like to think that I speak truth into people's existence. Our society is going through a trauma, it is okay to sleep. Our world has been turned upside down, it is okay to simply just survive. We do not need to set records, invent Calculus or finish home projects, unless we really want to. It's okay to be angry. "Give yourself some grace. Your brain is trying to tell you that fight & flight is the only way. Your amygdala overreacting."

But, dear friends, while you gape at the silhouette of your bike and wonder what the fuck just happened, remember that you better get some shit figured out. Because, the Great Pause will eventually fade and you will need to re-establish your normal, or admit that you were part of the problem of normal to begin with.