Creeping up on One Year with Covid

This week’s newsletter is below, but first I need to tell you about some changes to Corona Cafe. I’ve deeply appreciated the financial boost that your membership payments have provided in recent months. I’ve also fretted over the reality that a membership model ends up excluding people. Unfortunately, Substack doesn’t offer any sort of pay-what-you-want option. I think I’ve found a way around this. After sending out this newsletter, I plan to cancel the paid membership option on Substack. I still appreciate any support you are willing and able to offer, though, and so at the bottom of each newsletter, I’ll include a button that allows you to “Buy Me A Coffee.” If you click on the button, you can choose to to make a one-time donation of any size or a recurring “membership” donation of $5/month. The same content will be available to everyone, regardless of whether or not they donate. My hope is that this helps our community to grow and allows Corona Cafe to reach a larger and more diverse audience. Making payment something that people have to opt into rather than opt out of takes pressure off of all of you—and also off of me. You can still expect an email just about every week, but I might start taking an occasional week off, and I also don’t plan to double up on emails within the week anymore. When I have a new yoga video to share (or a Zoom link), I’ll include them within the weekly newsletter.

Thank you so much for the ways in which you’ve supported me and Corona Cafe up to this point! I appreciate each and every one of you. If you have any questions about these changes, feel free to email me or post them in the comments!

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I’m creeping eerily close to my one-year Covidiversary. It would be less creepy and eerie if I were well—if I could gather with friends, uncork a bottle of champagne, and tipsily reminisce, “Hey, remember that time when I was super sick? So glad that’s done!” There would be confetti and party hats, and I would wow the admiring crowds with my effortless keg stand.

I have a feeling there will be no keg stands for me in 2021. That’s okay, since there were also no pre-Covid keg stands. (Once a Mormon, always a lightweight.) But I do sometimes wish for confetti.

Instead of inviting me to a party, life is inviting me over and over again to pause. I’m trying to live this advice offered by author and life coach Iyanla Vanzant:

When you find yourself in a new situation . . . everything that requires healing is going to rush to the surface. . . . And if you don’t take a minute to breathe, to gather yourself, to pray, you will do what you’ve always done. So you’ve got to be clear enough . . . to say, “How am I gonna handle it this time?”

Though I’ll be one year into this journey on March 7, illness still feels new to me. I still have to remind myself of my limitations. Over and over, I have to push the reset button on my expectations. Everything in me that needs healing is still sitting—okay, sometimes stomping—right here on the surface. I get to ask myself over and over, “How am I gonna handle it this time?”

This time, when I feel my body powering down, but the Zoom call is still going, what am I going to do?

This time, when a request feels like too much, will I speak the simple and courageous word “No”?

This time, when my body asks for rest, how will I answer?

This time, when I need help, will I ask for it?

This time, when the tired record of “not enough, not enough, not enough” spins in my mind, how will I respond?

Bit by bit, I’m becoming more conscious of these choices. Bit by bumbling, back-breaking bit, I’m learning that honoring my boundaries helps me to feel more—not less—loving, centered, and connected.

What challenges are you handling differently now than you did pre-Covid? Where do you find yourself needing to ask: “How do I wanna handle this next time?”