Today I was thinking about how we went almost six months without any sort of school structure. Yes, we had online class during the beginning of quarantine BUT everyone was kinda like “wait what’s going on” at that point in time. So school structure pretty much was out the window. As we are all jumping back into things, has anyone felt rusty? Kinda like when you haven’t played your sport in a while or you haven’t worked out in a couple of weeks… you feel off? TRANSPARENCY moment here, I am not the best when it comes to stress and boy have I felt stress (lots added from myself as well). It’s week two of zoom/in person classes for me and it still feels whacky.
So I wanted to be real with y’all because I am sure lots of college students & high schoolers have felt this too. I want to take a guess and say majority of students are feeling the stress of such a different school year. I had a zoom malfunction last week where it kept kicking me off and I literally had a mental breakdown. I look back and laugh now because #dramatic but in the moment I was like “if this is how it’s going to be all year than buckle up and get ready for a stressful semester.”
And today I started thinking about everything I have yet to do and THEN I started thinking about how last year at this time I not only was adjusting to college life but I was ALSO in preseason… I was traveling like every weekend and I had practices everyday. Right now, we haven’t started official team stuff yet. So in my head I’m thinking “if I am stressed NOW how bad is it going to get when we start back up?” Basically my thoughts were moving at the speed of light and my brain was like 😐🥴😳🥺
*deep breath*
Stepping back and re-evaluating this season of life, I am reminded of grace, peace, the power of being present, and the empathy we must have for one another. Friends, life has been far from normal. I wasn’t able to get in a volleyball gym from the end of February til May due to transferring and covid. I had the same simple routine from March to the end of July… wake up, eat breakfast, workout, volleyball, then hope the end of the day went by quickly because what else is there to do??
Jumping from a schedule like that to a fifteen hour college schedule and adjusting to my new environment… not easy. My roommate is in 18 hours… that’s not easy. You may be in 19 and are actually practicing officially with your team. You may be a high schooler with canvas classes that take up all of your day. Or you’re a senior like my sister who has to go to school with a fifth of the amount of kids normally there…
Point is, none of this is easy. And that’s not something we as flawed human beings want to admit. We want to be like “oh this is a breeze” but in reality it is anything but a breeze.
I wanted to talk about this because I am the queen of being hard on myself. I hate when my anxiety fires up. I hate admitting I feel like I can’t handle all of this sometimes.
But I want to talk about grace, peace, the power of being present, and EMPATHY.
I want to encourage you to jump into the overflowing grace the Lord has for you. I want to encourage you to lean into Jehovah-Shalom, the God of peace.
I want to encourage you to be where your feet are, fully awake & fully present, no more sleep-walking. And lastly I want to mega ultra encourage you to be gentle with the people in your life and the people you come across. Let’s show each other empathy. Let’s feel with one another. Let’s be kind to our professors who are working so hard to make this school year happen. Let’s be patient with our sports and seasons.
Friends let’s build one another up, let’s extend a helping hand, let’s be seekers of the good and the peaceful in heart.
This season has a lot to teach us. It may be full of periodic mental breakdowns that we will show ourselves grace for… it may be challenging and we all may have blue light glasses by the end of 2020 but gosh we are going to be so much better because of it.
xoxo, Abbs