I was thinking about a childhood memory today, that of a sign posted in my Grandma Kanaan's kitchen. It read:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
I was 5 years old, and my father spent about 15 minutes explaining to me what "serenity," "courage," and "wisdom" were. He neglected to mention that my Grandma Kanaan might've had a drinking problem in addition to being a heavy smoker and a helluva gambler...so I'll stick with the sign and remember her heart of pure gold for the purposes of this story. I thought about those words today, as I read the news that our quarantine time is coming to a cautious end. I thought about how much my life changed in such a short time... 1) Covid-19, along with the instability of the stock market made me think twice about how I spend my money. As a result, I moved my operations from an office to my house. I researched and built a website that I could manage myself. I researched and implemented a business program that would help me streamline my operations so I could focus spending more time with clients. These changes turned my business into a lean machine, ultimately saving $10,000+ this year alone.
2) Thanks to social distancing, I got to spend time Zooming with people I had lost touch with or don’t get to talk to very often. I loved reconnecting with friends from all over the country instead of waiting to see them at the events I attend.
3) Thanks to the quarantine, it forced my boyfriend Doug and I to really think about how we live in our house. When we realized our guest room had only been used by guests 6 days in the last 10 months, it made the idea of a “home office” so much simpler. We sold our extra furniture and used that money to pretty up our new home office and turn the third bedroom into a craft room.
4) Thanks to all this extra time being spent at home, my boyfriend spent some of his down time painting the house, doing a little yard work, and catching up on some home repairs. He built a craft table, built the desks and bookcase for our home office, and hung pictures. Those curtains I bought 4 years ago that dragged on the floor finally got hemmed, and I got to use some of my mother’s fabric decoupaging our new desks.
5) Thanks to all the restaurants being closed, Doug and I (mostly Doug) have been cooking healthy meals. I found some tasty healthy recipes that we enjoy. My dance studio offered all their classes via Zoom, so I could continue working out 1-2 hours a day. At the beginning of the year, I set a goal for myself of attending 200 dance classes. During this time, I completed 100+ of those classes, and am down 25 lbs.
While my nails may be a mess and my grey roots are showing, Covid-19 taught me to enjoy where I’m at and who I’m with. It taught me to make the most of today, and to focus on changing the things I can change, not the things I can't.
With all due respect to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr who wrote the original The Serenity Prayer, I have revised it for 2020:
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