My friends, have you been feeling lazy and irritable?  Or are you angry at everyone else for doing nothing?  Does it feel strange to be distant and different from others?

There’s so much happening, and so much hovering at a standstill.  I think we all feel trapped between desperation for productivity and action and a craving for peace and resolution.  Truly a rock and a hard place.

As a friend posted the other day, “uncertain times” is actually ALL THE TIME.  We are kidding ourselves to think we were ever in control.  Learning to be mindful, planning for our biggest dreams, and practicing gratitude for what we already have are the tactics that will serve us always. 

But there is something special about this time.  Our isolation has distilled our values in some cases, intensified our worries, and at times liberated us from routines we didn’t enjoy.  No, there’s even more.  It’s made us weird!  We are showing our differences, big time.  We are bickering with each other.  We are handling things unlike our neighbors.  We are making different choices.  At times, we’re feeling truly angry, confused, and frustrated. 

It’s back-to-school season, my favorite time of year to shop, and I would normally be stocking up school supplies, some pretty artsy things and new notebooks for myself, and loading down the Anthropologie birthday discount with fall sweaters.  (My birthday tradition since I was about 19 years old.)  I did buy some school supplies for the kids, and I added a few fun things to a birthday list, but you know what else I bought?  Pajamas.  For sleeping.  A lot.  Overalls.  I bought denim overalls for working in the garden and playing on the farm.  With lots of pockets that I will actually use.  It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve bought in a long time, and I am loving that fact.

We are getting weirder, my friends.  We’re home, we’re isolated, we’re struggling, and we’re less caught up in what others are doing.  Our lives are intensely concentrated with less variety. Some of the clutter of our lives has fallen away.  With fewer distractions, our lives and our selves and our worries and our personalities are not diluted. I am not numbed from busy-ness, and I’m not hidden by group activities. I feel things intensely, just like my three-year-old, and then I have to let those feelings pass.  I show up more authentically. 

I think we’re all getting a little weird.  But I want that to be good news.  It is good news.  Let’s be weird and celebrate our differences instead of trying to assimilate.  Lean in to what’s weird.  You don’t wear makeup anymore?  Perfect; you’re beautiful.  Your family likes making annoying TikTok movies together?  Do the thing.  Loving that victory garden?  Start some new seeds for fall.  Are you knitting or crocheting now?  Order some more yarn and keep going.  Are you feeling motivated by current events?  Mask up and volunteer.  You’re a crazy plant lady now?  Fantastic; keep growing.  Rereading YA fiction?  Get after it.

No longer are we waiting for this to be over.  It keeps going.  And so do we.  This is who we are now, a little isolated and a little weird.  Be weird and bold.  When you show up in your life as true (weird) self, it makes you stronger and it makes us all better.  I’m cheering for you.