humble beginnings | hopeful future
THAT I WOULD BE FREE
Covid sucks. Can we turn it off?
In June I found my self saying over and over again, “I just need a minute to myself.” So this last week has been some strange karmic joke or the answer to prayer or maybe just a symbol of how in touch with the universe I really am.
Because I got covid.
Everyone wants to know, Where did you get it from?
And I have no idea.
I did just go to my 20-year high school reunion. I traveled on an airplane. I went to work for a couple of days before my symptoms hit. I even had an initial negative covid test.
At first I thought I just had a regular cold. It progressed from the mild sore throat, to the stuffy head, to the mild cough as expected. I did the second covid test at the end of the weekend just to assuage my own conscience that I was safe to go back to work, because I basically felt fine.
But the second test annoyingly came back positive. So I got an urgent care video visit appointment and a drive up PCR test to confirm. Yep. It was right.
I decided to work from home because I basically felt fine and the prospect of being alone in my house for ten days straight with nothing to do but putter around felt overwhelming.
But also, I was like, Okay! I can work on the book and make art and catch up on my filing (who has personal filing to do in 2021?!?!…I can’t explain myself, but I do….) and garden and build the playhouse and wash my car and do the laundry….[list goes on in perpetuity].
And I did some of that. I rested and I didn’t rest. I felt bad that I couldn’t go surfing when the weather and the water was so nice. I talked to almost everyone I know on the phone. I finished binge watching Peaky Blinders. I even had a board meeting with all the parts of myself and took notes and then read them to my sister! (Slowly slipping into madness...or sanity? You decide.)
I reflected on my repeated request in June for some time to myself. And I tried to *enjoy* it. And you know? I have to give myself credit because, if this would have happened a year ago, or even more so two or three years ago, I would have been A WRECK.
You see, R has been on vacation this month and away from me. And as much as mom’s get overworked and underpaid, it’s HARD to be away from that kid. Especially at home. Especially when I have not a lot to focus on.
So I’m giving myself a round of applause as I have decidedly NOT been a wreck.
I am, however, now ten days in, sicker than when this whole thing began. I wonder if what I had a week ago was a regular cold and what I am experiencing now is the dreaded corona virus. Don’t get me wrong! I’m not on a ventilator. And I still managed to shower today (one of the highlights in quarantine life). But I feel like garbage and everyone should feel sorry for me. (Gifts are welcome!)
But also, maybe this is my first taste of what real quarantine has been like for the regular customer out there. I work in healthcare so I was essential from day one. I’ve been leaving my house regularly. I’ve been seeing people other than those I live with. In some ways, life didn’t change much for me. (If this is the case, then I should be sending gifts to you! Because that was a loooong time and I remember the ugly, frantic energy at the grocery store and Lowe’s well enough to know, that if that was the only social interaction, then that was pretty bleak.)
So I’m not just posting to complain for myself and all of us...
Or maybe I am.
This is tough. I’m vaccinated. And it’s still tough. The numbers are spiking. I saw a meme yesterday that said, “We’re gonna have to retire the expression, 'Avoid it like the plague,' because it turns out humans do not do that.” Sort of reminds me of the Jerry Seinfeld bit about helmet laws—how you are making a law to protect a head that is already functioning so poorly it is not trying to protect itself.
And I’m hesitating to publish this because I know and love people who are choosing not to be vaccinated. And I’ve ridden a motorcycle without a helmet!
But here it is. One gal’s opinion.
Covid sucks. Can we turn it off?
[Not pictured: Covid that is now in my left eye...why the eyes!?! Damn you, viral conjunctivitis!]
I Just Want to Feel Like My Old Self
My brain wants to tell me that when things go back to normal, then I can be my old self again. But my old self isn’t waiting in the wings. She’s here with me right now.
At my last job, most of my cases were people with ADHD, depression, anxiety and mild bipolar disorder. I saw lots of people for their first ever psychiatry appointment and this was a phrase that frequently came up: “ I just want to feel like my old self.”
At first I wasn’t sure what to say to this. It sounded like a really reasonable request. More reasonable for the 20 year old college student having his first bout of depression, than the 63 year old who was looking back on her 20s as the example of “old self,” but still…how do you go backwards?
I related to it. Some circumstances are temporary. School feels this way. There is always the end of the semester, a winter break, after that next test…maybe that’s part of what teaches us early on that we should just hold on until the other side of this thing. The thing being abnormal, so once it’s over we can go back to normal.
But what about the experiences that forever changed me? Or forever changed my circumstances? Things that it seems there is no “other side” to get to? Mark Nepo described this as going through a door and you turn around to go back through it but the door is gone. Where is my old self in all of this?
When I sat across the table from patients who had been clawing or pining for the old self for years, I wanted to yell, “SHE’S DEAD! YOU’LL NEVER FIND HER AGAIN! STOP LOOKING!” That’s not therapeutic—and it’s not true. What actually came out of my mouth was a nudging toward new self. Maybe that person you used to be, maybe she had never experienced the death of a child, twenty years in a loveless marriage, sexual assault, a major professional setback, or being diagnosed with a chronic illness.
Maybe that old self is irrelevant now. Maybe she doesn’t know enough of the reality of life. But irrelevant seems inaccurate too.
What I am hinting at is acceptance. Acceptance that the world may look completely different on the other side of a major life event. Things may shift in dramatic ways. And my brain wants to tell me that there will be a back-to-normal moment again. That is when I will feel like my old self.
But what I’ve realized is that on both sides and in the middle of all of these circumstances, it’s just me. There is no other side to get to. I am waiting there for myself already, just as I am here with me now.
I’ve been thinking about it with this COVID-19 noise. I’ve been in a lot of anxiety, mostly because I’m afraid life will look different for a long time. And I really liked my pre-pandemic life. I am not unique in that I have had to cancel travel plans, scramble for childcare, worry about toilet paper and canned goods and old people who seem to keep going out despite the warnings.
I worry about whether I (and we) are being careful enough with this or taking it too seriously. I worry because I’m not doing my regular fitness stuff and because I’m stress-eating more carbs. I worry about responsibly consuming all of the produce I’ve purchased. I worry I will fritter my time away watching TV or talking this all over for the fiftieth time on the phone with a friend or family member. I worry I won’t take advantage of the sunshine when it’s out. That’s right! I have FOMO for sunshine.
There is so much available to be worried about. And my brain wants to tell me that when things go back to normal, then I can be my old self again. But my old self isn’t waiting in the wings. She’s here with me right now. Along with the 75 other versions of my old self that I’ve been in the last 36 years. Along with the new self that is growing out of the worry and the sunshine and the produce and the yoga and conversation I am feeding her today.
All selfs are welcome on all sides of life's challenges. They’re all here to stay anyway.
I heard Tracy Ellis Ross say that her most frequent prayer was, “Gentle, gentle, Tracy. Give yourself a thousand breaks and a thousand more.” I think I will adopt this.
Gentle, gentle, Michelle. There is room for all of you, the old and the new, in this beautiful, chaotic world.
Sat nam.