Resurface
Hi everyone! My name is Bea, and I’m excited to share my story with you. When Rachel asked me to contribute to The Limit DNE, I was nervous but ecstatic at the idea of connecting with people in such a different way than I am used to. For example, I’m not a huge social media poster, but I’m also 9 days into the challenge and really enjoying how refreshing it’s been for me, especially during a stay-at-home order.
In the midst of all the current global and national turmoil, I can’t help but think about the future. Eventually, we are going to look back at this time in history. We’ll tell our kids how we coped both as individuals and as a community.
I tend to think of my life now in chapters. So naturally, I think COVID-19 is beginning to define this next chapter – and I’m ok with that. What matters to me is how will I define it later on. In order to figure that out, I’d like to share part of my most recent chapter with you.
On January 2nd 2016, I was on vacation with friends when I learned that my cousin, who was days away from having his first child with his wife, had suddenly died, likely from heart complications. Two weeks later, I woke up to a 6:30 AM phone call from my best friend of 20 years, telling me that she saw a Facebook post confirming the death of our other friend, who had suffered from cystic fibrosis.
January 2016 absolutely rocked me, mentally. I was still trying to figure out how to grieve my cousin's death when one of my best friends died. Pamphlets from my cousin's memorial service were still in the church pew when I returned for my friend’s funeral service. I didn't know how to grieve and memorialize two people at the same time, with equal effort. Both were incredibly important to me. I felt no one else could relate, because of the separate social and familial circles. I was the lone overlap in the Venn Diagram of Eric and Katie.
It took me a few months to realize, but there are definite stages of dealing with a loved one’s death. Without going into much detail, I eventually reached the stage where I finally found some clarity. I reached the point where I was ready to dedicate part of my life towards my loved ones and their memory. I donated to the American Heart Association. I dove into long term fundraising efforts for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. More importantly - I asked myself what I could learn from Eric and Katie being parts of my life? What was their legacy on me? How do I turn the corner in this road of grief? How do I start to heal and focus on their memory?
This has been an ongoing challenge for me. Over 4 years later, I am still finding new ways to honor Eric and Katie's memories. Though different people, they were both fearless - the one thing that I am not, and the one thing I have always struggled to become. It took 26 years, and two loved ones dying for me to realize it was time to face my fears.
Up until recent years, I would have characterized myself as a shy, timid person, hiding in the shadows or waiting for someone else to step up to the plate. As a child, my parents introduced me to new people in some form of, "This is Bea, she's very shy…" I don't resent that; it was true. But today, I choose to be Bea, fearless. Still a quiet and reserved introvert, but fearless.
After January 2016, the first big thing I did was sign up for a Spartan Race. This was big for me since I, by no means, considered myself an athletic, fit, active individual. I rarely went to the gym, did half-assed workouts once a week or so, and called it a day. …and the Spartan journey was both an eye opener and a game changer. These days I aim for high intensity cardio 1-2x a week, and weightlifting or strength training 3-4x a week (well, before COVID-19). To put it simply, I started to give a shit about my health.
In 2016 I signed up for our company fitness club, made more friends at work, got some tattoos I'd been thinking about for a while, met my now current boyfriend of 4 years, and started focusing more efforts on STEM outreach (not necessarily in that order). I was invited by my college alma mater (Go Purdue!) to be the keynote speaker at a 300+ person event hosted for high school girls pursuing engineering. As someone who has always struggled with public speaking, or speaking to any group larger than 4 people, I freaked out for a couple days, but eventually said yes. Over the next few years I slid more outreach events under my belt by continuing to say "yes" to opportunities that arose. I found a way to give back.
At this point in time, COVID-19 has swept the lives of every single person I know, all over the world. January 2016 was my personal tragedy, but COVID-19 is a much higher and more widespread level of being mentally rocked. I have suffered all sorts of social and generalized anxiety over the years, but this thing hit me like a wall. I could not function for days at a time and inadvertently lost weight from lack of appetite in the first two weeks of adjusting to working and staying at home. It felt like all my progress in being fearless had come to a halt.
That being said – I understand that my struggles in this situation are relatively small compared to others, both health- and financial-related. But if my previous life chapter has taught me anything, it’s that nothing lasts forever, and we will eventually be alright. I managed to come out of 2016 with a different outlook on my life, and I believe we can eventually come out of 2020 with something positive too.
Maybe we come out with a greater appreciation of time spent with loved ones. Maybe we gain a greater respect for our environment. Maybe we stop taking essential workers for granted. Maybe we are more conscious of our hygiene and health. Maybe we find resolutions to the systemic racial disparities in our healthcare system. In fact, I would love to be able to tell the kids of our future that something good came out of this crisis.
Eventually we will be motivated again, and eventually we may even be fearless again. Eventually we will find a way to give back and heal from this. In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with being scared, absorbing the struggle right now, and pushing through however we can. There is nothing wrong with having terrible, anxiety-ridden days – as long as we eventually come out of them, better and stronger. Everything will be alright.
Bea
