UNCERTAINTY

Hi, friends! This past week has been one filled with fear, questioning, changes, and boredom. The atmosphere feels strange and eery. No one has ever done this before. This is the first time any of us are having to respond to something of this nature. Adventure and fun and whimsy feel like a distant luxury that have been put on pause. Both Allie and I found ourselves missing school quite a bit this past week. Many of the ideas from the Idea Journal that we planned on tackling are no longer possible under the current circumstances.

On the bright side, the weather has been absolutely beautiful, so Allie and I packed up some food and decided to have a picnic underneath a tree in my front yard. The birds chirped overhead and the sunshine was warm on our skin. We felt a sense of peace; some calm within the storm. In time, everything will go back to the way it was. For now, we experience solidarity from afar and we continue to do little things every day that bring us joy. Little things like picnics under a tree and walks around the block. Uncertainty remains, but it doesn't have to be debilitating. The whole purpose of this project was to bring some fun and some joy into the mundane. Our lives are in need of joy now more than ever, so we choose to continue on with this mission. We continue to choose joy over fear and uncertainty because the two are not mutually exclusive.

We were reminded that we are allowed to feel fear. We are allowed to mourn the loss of our comfort in terms of our daily routine. We are allowed to feel overwhelmed and anxious about the future. But these things do not cancel out the joy. We're choosing to be intentional about putting forth effort every day to surround ourselves with sunshine and laughter and peace. Life looks a little different now, and it probably won't look the same for a while yet. But we hope that you will join us in keeping our chins up and searching out the little things. They make all the difference.