Turning 50 during a Pandemic
Last year, if you had told me that I would be spending my 50th birthday at home with my husband and two children with no plans to celebrate, I would have told you that you were crazy! Of course I had plans.
A decade ago, I had a big party at my home with invited friends and family, and we had a blast. This year, I had planned to bring in the 50s in a grand way, but differently. I was to travel to Switzerland with my husband — who incidentally shares the same birthday — and spend my 50th hiking in the Swiss Alps. Simply staying at home in my pajamas was not supposed to be in the stars. I take pride in the fact that I have made it to half a century; I wanted to celebrate in a grand way!
Instead, we found ourselves cancelling our trip and settling into the fact that we would be celebrating our birthday without friends or family, no grand event or trip, just the four of us at home together. The acceptance came slowly. At first I decided I was going to plan a grand virtual party and invite friends. I talked a few youth into doing an open mic which I decided to cancel last minute. Something in me was calling for me to stop planning and accept that there need not be any grand event. Instead, my day went like this…
I woke up on my birthday beside my best friend, with whom I have shared 32 birthdays. He went out for his ritual morning run and I cleaned my room, showered, spent a long time in prayer and meditation, and read a decade’s worth of my journal entries while my son made a delicious breakfast. After breakfast, I listened to The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of my favorite authors, and followed that with a nap. Around 2pm we went for a hike — something we haven’t done as a family in a while — and then came back home for more napping. We feasted on dinner prepared by Jared and a red velvet cake baked by Zia, then rounded off the night with a card game and some journaling. Then, off to bed.
At the end of the day, as I sat there journalling, my daughter came and hugged me and asked me how my day had been. I realized in that moment that I had just celebrated the best birthday yet, without making any plans. I fell into the day and it played out perfectly. Once I had accepted that there wasn’t going to be anything grand to usher in my 50s, I realized at the end of the day that my 50th birthday turned out to be beyond grand — it was spectacular. I got to rest and actually take a day off: something I haven’t done in God knows how long. I got to feed and fill my body, soul, and intellect.
Over the past month, I have been given a real gift: the freedom to stop and reflect. A week into the quarantine, I began to feel anxiety over the lack of motivation and inability to keep up with the pace at which some of my peers were creating content to meet the needs of the community, when all I felt was intense emotional and physical exhaustion. My daughter Zia’s text appeared in my messages just in time to give me the perspective I needed to stop and turn my attention inward.
“… I’m trying to take the opportunity to look around me. I don’t think I have ever seen the world so still and so silent; our lives have been put on pause. The past few weeks I have felt like I have been contracting every muscle of my body, sitting here with bated breath, waiting for this to end, dreading every new day. But why? Why not appreciate this break from the non-stop life. Why not use this time to do all the things I’ve been wishing to get done? I’m always saying that I should read more, that I should write more, that I should get better at the guitar, that I should get back into art. So why not do it and why not now? Why not use this time to create healthy habits? I have to remind myself that it is ok to be alone, it is healthy…This has also proven to be an unexpected crash course in absolute detachment. Not even the most seemingly stable things are guaranteed; we simply must find new ways to make the most of life.” — Zia Foxhall.
On my birthday, reading through 10 years of journals brought me to tears. So much loss and heartache, but also so much life and love. Once again I find myself mourning my loved ones who left us too soon, but I am also reminded that I was blessed to have known them. I am reminded of the love we shared and the adventures we had together, and that gives me strength and hope.
In a way, time has slowed down for me, or perhaps it is causing me to slow down. It is teaching me to stop and feel, be present, and reflect. I have cried more in the past month than in a long time and it feels good. I am reflecting on my mortality and turning inward to reflect on my spiritual life and how to live a truly authentic life. Recently, I listened to a presentation by Dr. Ruha Benjamin in which she cites a quote by Arundhati Roy who states,
“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next…We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
I am taking this time to listen to the promptings of my spirit: listen to the voice of God within me and reflect on what I want to bring through and what I need to leave behind. So yesterday for the first time in years, I pulled out my sketchbook and did a still life drawing. I have been photographing every day on my walks in the woods. I am trying to enjoy this rare gift of time, and being okay when I do nothing, knowing that in doing nothing, I am doing a lot.
I plan to leave behind the constant self-doubt, comparing, or holding myself up against society’s standard of success that is not only unattainable but also unrealistic. I choose to instead reflect on the virtues that have been placed within me of kindness, love, empathy, compassion, and so much more. Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, reminds me that I am whole and enough:
“O SON OF BEING! With the hands of power I made thee and with the fingers of strength I created thee; and within thee have I placed the essence of My light. Be thou content with it and seek naught else, for My work is perfect and My command is binding. Question it not, nor have a doubt thereof.”
I am pushing back against attending the numerous amazing virtual events out there and trying to balance my time between work, family, and time to myself. I am being careful not to fill this forced social distancing with zoom meetings and webinars and making time to walk in the woods daily and listen. To cook healthy meals, eat, pray, and play with my family. I am reflecting on how privileged I am to be quarantined in this part of the world, with a family that genuinely enjoys each other’s company, and the luxury to be able to slow down. I am praying for all the essential workers out there, for all the millions of people that find themselves without work, in homes that are not safe and for all who have lost and will lose a loved one.
When this is over, we will need all hands on deck to deal with the trauma and destruction this pandemic will leave in its wake. We all have a part to play in the healing that will follow. There will be millions of exhausted and broken individuals who are currently working so hard to keep this world going and they will need us to serve them. Will we be ready? Or will we be too exhausted because those of us who could never took the time to pause and reboot?
I’d like to conclude with these words of hope from the Universal House of Justice, March 2020.
“Humanity will ultimately pass through this ordeal, and it will emerge on the other side with greater insight and deeper appreciation of its inherent oneness and interdependence.”
