Hi, I'm Sarah McCammon, National Correspondent at NPR, and this is NPR's Life Kit.

We are living in uncertain times. No one knows exactly how or when this coronavirus pandemic will end,

or what it will mean for our lives and the lives of our loved ones.

We're worried about a lot of things, our health, our finances, our social fabric even.

How do we get through this? What will the challenges be in the coming weeks, months, years?

And what will the world look like when it's over? I know I'm not the only one lying awake at night

asking myself these questions, or waking up in the morning wondering how to get through another day

of dealing with all the normal life stuff we all have to deal with while living with this constant

uncertainty just percolating in the background. This pandemic that we're all going through together feels

unprecedented, but uncertainty is not. People live through all kinds of scary things all the time.

That's life. So I wanted to talk to some folks who've lived day to day with

looming uncertainty about what happens next, about how they got through it, and what we might learn from

them right now. When she was 15, Robin Wallery found her life quite suddenly, abrooted, and uncertain.

After her family got a call, letting them know there were wildfires burning near their home near

San Diego. And then my mom came in and woke me up and basically told me that we were going to be

evacuating because the fires were getting closer, but you know it was going to be okay. We were

going to be coming back to our house and to pack. Like I was going to a sleepover at a friend's house

for like two or three nights. That was 2007 when Wallery was a high school sophomore. She packed some

pajamas, grabbed some photos. They drove to a parking lot near the freeway, trying to decide whether

to leave. So we stayed in that parking lot like me, my dad, my mom, and my dog for about six hours

just listening to the radio and listening for updates. And I remember just constantly asking my

parents like, why are we still here? What are we doing? I remember my parents just being so confused

...