{"id":12445,"date":"2020-04-01T18:34:04","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T00:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=12445"},"modified":"2020-04-01T18:35:47","modified_gmt":"2020-04-02T00:35:47","slug":"wait-it-isnt-an-april-fools-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wait-it-isnt-an-april-fools-joke\/","title":{"rendered":"Wait \u2013 It Isn\u2019t An April Fool\u2019s Joke?!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I was so hoping I would turn on the news this morning and they\u2019d\nsay \u201cAPRIL FOOLS!\u201d and we\u2019d all find out this whole pandemic is just one big\nelaborate April fool\u2019s joke being played on us\u2026.yeah, no such luck\u2026turns out\nits all real\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As this pandemic escalates more and more and the deaths\nbegin hitting closer and closer to home with people I know and have served with\nin my community passing away and friends getting sick it is hard not to have the\nheaviness weigh on your heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had a moment today where the reality of the number of people\nthat we know and love who we might lose to this virus, followed by the\nrecognition that we ourselves could fall victim to this virus, all came crashing\ndown on me at once.&nbsp; It was this moment of\ninhaling a huge breath at the enormity of the situation we all currently face.\nAlmost like it\u2019s so real that your mind almost can\u2019t process it.&nbsp; I don\u2019t really know how else to describe it\nbut perhaps some of you can relate to the feeling\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To pull myself out of it I instantly reminded myself, \u201cYou\naren\u2019t in control of what is going to happen here. All you can do is your best\nto prepare what you can. No amount of worrying or being afraid is going to\nalter or change any outcomes, they will only strip all the joy from this time you\nhave. So breathe in, breathe out, relax your body, and focus on all that\u2019s\ngood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that is what I&#8217;m going to do tonight. I am going to spend time with my kids and my two grandbabies, I\u2019m going to hold hands with my husband, and I may even pull a few little pranks like putting tape over the sensors on our TV remotes or putting a sheet of bubble wrap under the rugs\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don&#8217;t let fear and worry strip your life of joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/What-Awesome-Looks-Like-Business\/dp\/1946633763\">What Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business &amp; Life<\/a>\u201d ) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was so hoping I would turn on the news this morning and they\u2019d say \u201cAPRIL FOOLS!\u201d and we\u2019d all find out this whole pandemic is just one big elaborate April fool\u2019s joke being played on us\u2026.yeah, no such luck\u2026turns out its all real\u2026 As this pandemic escalates more and more and the deaths begin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[395,8129,23295,22998,23294,8554,23291,23298,23289,23299,7529,23292,3995,23297,23293,23290,23296],"class_list":["post-12445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amy-rees-anderson","tag-be-prepared","tag-being-afraid-wont-change-the-outcome","tag-coronavirus","tag-dont-let-fear-and-worry-strip-your-joy","tag-focus-on-the-good","tag-friends-dying","tag-hard-to-process","tag-heaviness","tag-it-isnt-an-april-fools-joke","tag-its-about-time","tag-losing-loved-ones","tag-reality","tag-the-enormity-of-the-situation","tag-the-fragility-of-life","tag-the-seriousness-of-the-situation","tag-worldwide-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12446,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12445\/revisions\/12446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}