I’m pretty lucky to be one of those people who enjoys time alone everyday and feel very comfortable in the present tense. With how busy my chef business was often six days a week, a day off was a precious moment to get caught up on necessities but also to perhaps sleep in an extra hour or take a mid- afternoon walk in the sun. In all honesty I thrive in a structured life with plenty of items on the daily to-do list and having a business I created become successful was proof it worked. And then…it just stopped. Perhaps like your job did, or your partner’s career, or you suddenly became a full time teaching supervisor to three kids on laptops doing homework instead of managing a corporate group of peers. There are days it overwhelms me and then I realize so many of you are in the same boat or worse. Be gentle and let yourself mourn and adjust to such a rapid new reality. I’m finding that balance too, of accepting what is the current situation and adapting with better-for-me daily habits.

We’ve seen a million funny quarantine memes on social media, and way too many angry or fearful news stories. But the one theme that keeps grabbing my psyche is practicing gratitude. Yes I may not have that certain food I want right now but I have a fridge and pantry well stocked with enough groceries for weeks.  It isn’t perfect spring weather but it isn’t late December with a long brutal cold winter still ahead of us. No, I can’t hang out at the library or browse my favorite thrift stores, but I have internet, a laptop and smart phone, thus I have connection to literally millions of podcasts and online shopping. My business plan has just swerved off the road and into the ditch for the time being but it is allowing me to create new things and explore avenues I never had time for. Listen to the world news reports and you soon realize there are millions living in muddy tents with no water or walking hundreds of miles with their entire lives strapped to their backs to escape virus riddled cities…and you realize bitching about your now delayed pro sporting event tickets seems, well, inhuman.  Gratitude is an amazing salve for frustrating days of impatience and uncertainty.

Please try to use some of this gift of time by practicing that gratitude daily even if it is simply to be happy for clean socks or a box of favorite tea. Take some time to re-evaluate that previous crazy busy lifestyle and do a reality check to see how much of that ‘normal’ you really need or want to restore. Just maybe there will be a tiny silver lining in this shift of the entire universe to help us realize what is truly important and worth holding onto.