Love During COVID
Love, Even During a Pandemic
Love during any time can be a challenging emotion to express. Whether it’s to your partner or your family or your community, telling someone you love them can take courage. If it’s the first time you’re saying it to a person, maybe the words get caught in your throat and your palms perspire ever so slightly. If you have been saying it to the same person for years, maybe you are afraid the words “I love you” have lost some of their meaning. Expressing love is scary even in the best of times. Yet now more than ever, we must find a way to screw our courage to the sticking place and tell the people that matter most to us we love them.
Thank You Facetime
In a world that was already trending towards digital communication, I personally feel the absence of real human connection now more than ever. As an army wife, I’ve been relying on virtual communication with my husband while he was overseas for years. We would Facetime daily and constantly be texting. But all that digital connection could not come close to replicating the bond we have when we are together. Coronavirus feels like an extension of that digital relationship but to all aspects of my life. My friends, my coworkers, my children’s teachers, even my extended family feel so distant right now. And we are lucky! We are still able to Facetime, call, and message one another when so many people who are suffering due to the pandemic don’t have that. That’s why I’m not taking those resources for granted. I’m putting them to use by consciously reaching out to my loved ones to celebrate our relationships, even if they are digital for now.
Show Them Your Love
I remember seeing the viral video of a husband waving to his wife inside a nursing home as she recovered from Covid. As the health care workers that saved her life got off their shifts, he thanked each one of them from a safe distance. We need more of that kind of love right now. So, whether it’s your grandmother, your significant other, your children, your college roommate who you haven’t spoken to in years, or your local representative who is fighting for a cause you believe in, I dare you to put some love out into the world. What better time than the present? The goal is simply to make sure those individuals and communities you love know they matter to you. Once you start, you may be surprised at how long the list of people you love really is.
