The Virus Diary – Month 18 Healing process

Bottom of the wave

There is beauty in the nature

It has been interesting to follow your mind and how it works in situations like this. First you convince yourself that nothing’s changed ,everything is just fine because you have to. It’s a way of surviving, it’s a way of managing the situation. The truth is that it’s not fine everything is upside down nothing is the way it used to be and it scares you.

They say that the healing process of sorrow or sudden grief works in waves. First you’re at the bottom then you rise to the top only to reach the bottom of the wave again later. This goes on until the tsunami reaches the shore or the storm comes down. No matter how far from the epicentre you are there is still waves they are just not that high. Meaning in time the lows are not that low anymore and they don’t come that frequently.

That is exactly how I feel right now. I wasn’t really consciously aware of it earlier, but yes I am going through a healing process, healing from a traumatic experience in a way. It wasn’t only the virus it was also the whole experience of climbing Kilimanjaro and the injury caused by it that prevented me from doing what I love for a very very long time (and probably in some sense permanently) meaning exercising and running.

It was a lot of things that caused the tsunami and my bottom of the wave.

Twisting mind

Mind is a funny thing. It twists things around to suit whatever the situation is. If you are in a panic mode all you need to do is survive and that is what you do you survive. Then when things calm down a little bit you get more strength to concentrate on other things than just the survival. And finally you find a way to look at everything from above and evaluate what has happened.

I can honestly say that last year was crap. Full of crap. The whole year was a disaster, the whole year was just bad thing one after another. Forcing you to live on the edge constantly struggling to maintain your freaking sanity.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one thinking this way, that I’m not the only one who has fought and struggled last year. I know my struggles are minor to what other people have experienced so I should not be complaining, but for me it was the hardest year of my life and I’m not lying. Looking back I have no idea how I survived and how I’m even somewhat sane right now.

Healing process

But getting back to the healing process. I have noticed lately that I’m thinking a bit more positively about the future. I have seen my friends, I have seen my colleagues, most of all I’m not constantly afraid, afraid if I will get the virus and how it will affect me. Will I get the bad variation and even if I get the mild variation will it have effects that last the rest of my life?

On the lake at our summer cottage

So I’m happy I have had the first dose of the vaccine, because at least now I feel more at peace, that I have done what I can to prevent the serious version of the virus. I know the battle is not over yet. The virus will stay with us forever, we just need to find a way to live with it. From mental perspective though, the shock and disruption caused by this lives with the people who experienced it forever. It has changed all of our lives undeniably forever in one way or another.

I know there is still a long way to go even for me in the healing process of this, but I think I’m on my way, I think the world is on its way. I think we’re finding some lost joy again off the way things used to be. Simple things, small things, like singing together. Such a simple thing that was denied from us and it almost tore my heart apart.

You need to survive so you just convince yourself I can do this. I can do this no worries super easy, I just won’t sing for a while that’s good, that’s fine. The truth is at some point enough is enough. If it’s a part of you that is really hard to deny from yourself. In the end you stopped thinking about it, stopped missing it and found other ways to replace that void. Now I sing less and less all the time. My vocal chords need some serious training after the holiday season I know! This is just an example of what we have been forced to deny, or cease to do, or have not done because we want to protect everyone else, our loved ones and yes sometimes ourselves too.

Protect everyone

Image from one of my past years roles ”police officer in blue” from a Finnish police series called Roba

I have done all the precautions I can for the past year and a half because I don’t, or past tense I didn’t want anybody’s life to be on my conscience. So I have worn a mask, I have kept my distance, I have worked from home and I have hardly met anyone outside ad/tv/movie productions which I count kind of as work and impossible to do remotely. On the other hand the hygiene has been impeccable in the productions I have worked so huge thanks to everyone the cast and crew for that.

So I hope it has helped. I have to think it has. I have to think that what I have done has made a difference because otherwise all the sacrifices that I’ve have done during this one and a half years would have been for nothing. So when you think should I take the vaccine, just know that there are a lot of people in the world doing everything they can to help you out so you would not get the serious version. The least you can do is help a little back and do the same if you can so we can at some point get back to somewhat normal.

While waiting for that I hope you have managed to keep a bit of holiday this summer and relax. Mine just ended, but I think I need some more 🙂

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The Virus – Day 83 – Life is still life

Yep, all good. Life seems to continue normal and you don’t even think about this ”new normal” that much anymore. Teenagers think that this is better because they can wake up 15 minutes before the school starts and preschooler thinks it good because she can be with mommy all day.

Morning circle and crafts through tablet and video chat app

BUT she does get bored, ”has nothing to do” and wants to see her friends. We keep saying we can’t meet friends now and explain why and she has begun to talk about ”can we do it when the virus is not here anymore”. Her birthday is in the beginning of May and I have said that we cannot keep her birthday ”in person” this year, but we need to organize something maybe later, but we have discussed we might keep a virtual get together with friends. Let’s see.

They manage to keep all school classes through internet. For sports they go outside and do something, for piano and singing lesson they do it through tablet pointing at the keyboard or singing to teacher, but other subjects they keep in Teams/Google Classroom/OneNote. Some are with all students, some work is on their own and sometimes also the teacher seems to be in the video chats.

Even the kindergarten keeps video morning circle and crafts twice a week so we got 5 people online in different video chats at the same time in different spaces in the house. Lucky we are in Finland where the internet speed is not the obstacle for this! It’s mostly funny listening everyone babble their own thing, but then again it’s sad that this really is the situation now, how things have changed in just a few months and that you feel safer inside your house than outside in ”fresh” air with other people.

What I miss the most

Easter service streamed

I miss just going out, getting dressed up in something else than just sweatpants. I miss being around people, I miss the city buzz and I most of all I miss singing together especially with our energetic choir Gospel Helsinki. We were supposed to have a Gospel service today and few other performances during Easter, but now there was only a streamed service with three singers and the band. Rest of us were at home listening and singing along, but it’s not the same. Day by day that’s probably the thing I miss the most, singing together.

So I am singing alone and have started to play piano again. Haven’t touched it for a few months, but now have tried to play it almost daily. Mostly accompanying myself singing. I’m no pianist, but it’s fun to practise. I record them also and then to ”criticise” myself both on singing and playing so it’s a learning session too. Car is a good place to practise also as there is nobody to bother you and you can sing-a-long Spotify as loud as you wish. It is especially good for Gospel song practise as it tends to be a bit vocal especially for penetrating soprano voice.

I did do a ”virtual choir” project last weekend where hundreds of singers around Finland joined to sing a song together. We all recorded our part on our own with a back up track and send it to the choir conductor who with his team will then compile a video. It was a lot of fun, good practise on self criticism. We are all looking forward to it being published later next week hopefully. These are all new and exciting things, but they do not replace ”the real thing”.

WFHWK and no training

Virtual choir singing with headset

WFHWK aka Working From Home With Kids is tough and I have it easy! Mine are already older so they do not need that much entertainment. Still I notice that this week has been hard. Both mentally and physically. I am not able to exercise as my leg got worse. I have finally self diagnosed myself with IT band inflammation caused by too much running (doh, who would have thought 46 km in one week is too much being twice as much as normally!). It’s completely my own fault, I was not following how much I was running I just kept going and realized too late it was too much.

I can feel that not being able to get the pressure out by running, or other exercise, I am getting a bit tired and more tense. Hence piano, and singing have been good distraction and relaxation to get my mind of work, cooking and house cleaning for a while.

I have already come to terms that this is what it’s going to be for a long time now. Older kids most likely won’t go to school until August, my youngest won’t be going to kindy until June, we won’t be going to Flanders choir games in July with the choir, our spring concert is not happening and we are lucky if we can go to our summer cottage for Midsummer like we do every year with my parents.

How much longer

It’s hard to say how long this will still last here in Finland. They predict we might be close to the peak, but I don’t want to keep my hopes up. I think it’s better to just not expect anything but just live day by day and be happily surprised if it ends earlier than you thought. We know for sure this stricter confinement is going to last until mid May and large gatherings until end of May, but all that may change. We should be wiser again after Easter and see how things have evolved.

Around the world situations seem to vary and some countries are worse hit than others. Right now I believe also that the best solution is to flatten the curve but I don’t believe we can completely eradicate the virus and we must loosen the restrictions and get back to ”normal” slowly everywhere at some point.

And YES we need to help all countries to mitigate the impact because there is no going back. We are a ”one world” whether we want it or not. Ever since the fist air planes started flying or actually ever since humans started walking from Africa up North we have been travelling from one place to another and mixing up. It’s our nature to explore and be curious.

I don’t think though that travelling will be quite the same anymore and new remote technologies will definitely change the way we work, but we will still move and I’m sure that when we can I will too. I will go and have a coffee at the local market square in the sunshine during my lunch break and just watch people pass by and enjoy the buzz. And then I will walk back to our office in the city centre and continue my work day. Just as before. Or will I?

Take care, be safe, keep calm and avoid people <3


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Training W50 – More Christmas hassle but tying to keep training on

It’s been a while since my last post about something else than weekly training. Moving house caused a total chaos for our household that has lasted for a few months. There is really nothing you can do about, you just need to unpack one box at a time and get used to the new neighborhood. I really love the new house as we have much more space than before.

At the same time the choir end of year concerts have taken quite a significant amount of time during the evenings. We have had multiple performances. One was for the Finnish National Broadcasting channel Yle at the after party of the Finnish Independence day which is a really big thing here with about 2,5 million viewers. All the singing during the week concluded in the biggest concert of the year for us last weekend.

It’s clear the end of the year hassle is full on and it seems like the holidays are coming way too quickly! Prioritizing has been the word of the month and training has been first and simply no time for blogging as much as before.

In spite of all this hassle I have been able to keep up with my training pretty good and I can see progress both in speed and strength.

I have also started to dream about hiking, mountaineering and climbing so my mind seems to be set for the climb already 🙂

Wishing everyone a quiet and nice Christmas break and please keep following my blog I am hoping to have some time to update it during the break. I have so many ideas and posts ”almost ready”!

Total

  • 1 basic run 16 kilometers
  • 1 trail run 10 kilometers
  • 1 gym training

Target

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