That is what the last few days have seemed like.

One thing after another with this Coronavirus.
With each domino, our new reality becomes clearer.

I watched Amanda unravel 6 months of hard work she had put in designing and organizing the Idaho Writers Conference set for the end of April.

My niece, who is a senior in high school, was notified her sport season was over, prom was canceled, and even her graduation ceremony may not happen. Ouch.

Every day there are more dominos.

When you don’t know when they will stop dropping, panic begins to creep up your spine.

On the one hand, I am thrilled our communities are taking such decisive action. I mean, if you are going to shut down some things, might as well shut down most things.

I’m all for nipping this crisis in the bud. One or 2 hard months sounds way better than 12 months of fear.

I will say I’m surprised by the level of cooperation (now) that I see across the political landscape, locally and globally to try to squash this bug.

The fact that they shut down our entire school system locally with only a few confirmed cases in our state means they are trying to be proactive versus reactive, which isn’t what I am accustomed to seeing very often in local government.

I keep wondering how many dominos will keep falling. But it’s clear, we won’t know until we’ve done this social distancing thing for a few weeks to see how it’s working.

The silver lining for some is that they can hit the pause button on their rat race and spend quality time with loved ones. Yesterday we tried to teach our girls how to the play card game gin rummy (total failure but we gave it a shot), we played catch in the yard, and they taught Amanda and me how to play their favorite video game.

Despite all our concerns about the future, it was a good day for my family. We laughed, we bonded, and we ate 3 meals together.

Maybe some of the dominos that are falling are not all bad.

We all have people in our life that are notorious for being victims, blaming others for their hardships. “I didn’t get this; therefore, this why I’m…” “They didn’t do this, therefore, this why I’m…”

They may be the extreme, but anyone can quickly become a victim when change comes fast and forcefully.

Sudden change is scary, confusing, and because of this, are normal defensive actions may become passive.

Extreme change can easily become an excuse. An excuse to give up, to stop trying and chances are, nobody will fault you for it because you have a darn good reason. “The current was strong, so I had to go down the river.”

This is Passive Change, a victim’s response to change.

We can also fight the current, we may not be able to stop it or swim upstream, but we can strategize a way across the river that is now impacting us. It may take us multiple attempts. But with each attempt, we can learn something new until we figure out something that works.

This is Active Change, a deliberate and sustained response to change.

Change is inevitable in our lives.
We can let it take us downstream, or we can find a way across the river.