After Hitting The Wall

It’s been a difficult year for all of us. When I stop to think that it has been almost a year now since COVID-19 reared its’ ugly head in my personal world, I’m shocked at all the hardships we’ve gotten through. We all had to adjust to working from home, schooling at home, not going out to eat or to the movies. We’ve isolated for close to a year now. We’ve socially distanced ourselves, used gallons of hand sanitizer until our hands chapped, and we’ve refrained from any physical contact with even our close family members. This was in addition to all the trials of everyday living!

For those of us with disabilities, it’s been especially difficult. We often don’t have the resources that others have to get us through hard times. Finances are often tight living on Social Security Disability Income or Supplemental Security benefits. We are often isolated by our disability, yet we’ve gotten through! We are survivors, and we know what adversity is. We’ve faced it in the past, and we’ll certainly face it again, but sometimes we need to just stop and say “I’ve made it,” even if we haven’t yet reached the end.

A lot of people are hitting the wall now that we’re nearing a year of COVID-coping. It’s daunting to think about how much more we might have to go before enough of us have the vaccine to protect us, and before we have enough vaccines to cover all the types of the virus. But, my friends we’ve made it so far! We may not be out of danger yet, but we know now what to do. We’ve recognized that we need each other in order to survive, and we’ve learned we can depend on each other when times are hard.

It’s been a year of learning, with many silver linings to balance the hardships we’ve endured. Yes, we lost people we loved. But perhaps we love a little more freely now. Many of us lost our jobs, but we learned new ways to survive and in some ways, we’re stronger for it. We learned that the news could report on how brave and willing our healthcare workers are to sacrifice for others. We hit the wall, but we survived. With teamwork and ingenuity, a vaccine was developed for the first time in history to stop a worldwide pandemic! There are awesome stories coming out of these times, and we have lived not only through them, but we’ve lived in them, with grace. That’s a pretty cool accomplishment!