I’ve heard about the Curve Ball being delivered by famous pitchers to equally famous sluggers. Some people watch baseball games just to see it thrown. Apparently, you have to be ‘really good’ to throw it and ‘even better’ to hit it. Why World Series Pennants have been won or lost because of it.
Now each and every one of us get to check our own score at dealing with the Curve Ball that was thrown into our personal game of life. Mine arrived on March 10, 2020 when the Canadian Government said don’t leave the country. Poof, the vacation to Cuba vanished. Two weeks later I was told to shut down my private practice in psychology. Poof, done! Then my three times a week fitness routine ended. No more socializing with my friends and family. My arm and shoulder began aching from all the ‘woe is me’ commiseration phone calls. Traffic ground to a halt. Virtually everyone in my neighbourhood actually listened to the guidance and abided by the rules. Those that didn’t were easy enough to avoid.
That process turned out to be the easy part, after all it was just for a couple of weeks, a mini-vacation of sorts. By the end of those 2 weeks we discovered a few more weeks would take care of things. Now people are beginning to disagree how many weeks constitute several. ‘Indefinitely’ is being bandied about. Face masks, disinfectant, hand washing (wringing???) from here on in. Why some people own several masks that match their various wardrobe outfits.
None of this actually answers the abiding question: “So, how did you handle your curve ball?”
- Did you drink more?
- Did you eat more?
- Are you now afflicted with Quarantine 15?
OR
- Did you adjust beautifully with no effort?
- Did you thoroughly enjoy the downtime?
- Are you happily waiting for it all to end?
OR, like me, are you beating yourself up for:
- Not writing?
- Wanting to run away and hide?
- Wondering why you ever got hooked up with him/her at all?
- Children? Who wants children?
I hope it helps to know that all of this angst is a normal, healthy reaction to an abnormal set of events.
One way to think of it … as an opportunity to observe in our own lives what really happens to our fictional characters when we as authors, turn their lives upside down. Perhaps we will write more realistically about their emotions and their thoughts and their physical truths.
I, for one, intend to be more conscious of the myriad of reactions my characters experience… how their tempers flare, their patience disappears and they cry easily. At the very least I will use my own experience with the Curve Ball to help my characters leap off the page in 3 dimensions. Maybe my writing will improve and I will in fact have gained something worthwhile from this very difficult time.
