Thursday, May 21, 2020

Little morning thoughts

What does it mean to be? I've realized that in these past months - actually longer than lockdown time, stretching back to the end of July when all the bad stuff in my life started happening - that's a question I've been asking.

and I can't find an answer.

And I also realize now - I always rolled my eyes over the people always on their phone, who couldn't even walk across campus with, out calling someone or texting someone and for me walking across campus was a chance to be out in the quiet. Well, now all I have is quiet and I don't like it and I wonder if maybe I was just covering up the fact that (a) I don't have that many friends (surely the people always on the phone or texting must have scores of friends) and (b) I have been "taught" in my younger life not to "bother" people, even people I consider my friends, so something like calling or texting without a reason or without it being a planned call isn't something I would do.

And that makes it hard, in lockdown. I ache for just casual human contact and while I can kind of simulate that with some forms of social media....well, Twitter is like being at a crowded event where the small number of people you want to talk to are there, but sometimes they're shouted down by louder, more attention-seeking people, or the bringers-of-bad-news. Or sometimes they ARE just offline because most people have more of a life than I do. And on Ravelry, maybe there aren't the loud random voices so much, but most of the people I interact with on there very much have other lives....and it reminds me, some afternoons when I'm idly hitting refresh and there's nothing new, just how empty my life is.

When you make work important in your life, when it's really the main thing, it's hard when that work changes or goes away. I fear for what might happen to me if we're still under some kind of lockdown* and if my university closes its doors.

(*Meaning: before a vaccine, or if a vaccine is never developed - which, holy Hell, there is a rather loud voice out there fundamentally saying and I don't want to believe it, but....I also worry).

I also think about things like the last time I was at church in person or at JoAnn's or felt able to free-range it in a grocery (without a mask, without moving as fast as I can and just grabbing the things on my list so I can pay and scram) and it makes me sad to think those might have been the LAST time. I am not ready for my life to tip over into the realm of "all lasts" - I mean, I already had the last time I saw my dad, and the last communications with a few friends, and the last trip to a now-closed-down quilt shop. I think that's really what scares me the most about getting older - that I'm going to stop having "hellos" and go to having mostly "goodbyes" and I don't know how you manage to keep going with that realization.

I am sad this morning because last night I dreamed about a lot of the people I have lost in the past 10 years and it awakened the fear of - what if most or all of the people I care about die while we're stuck under the cloud of this thing, and because I'm not going out and about, I have no chance to make new friends, and I become increasingly alone.

And it makes me mad that sleep isn't even a respite right now.

But what does it mean to be? I don't know that I know how to get meaning out of life any more; some days it feels more like I'm existing in this. And just waiting. And then I worry that that waiting might be forever, or it might culminate in me dying here, all alone, like Eleanor Rigby.

It's overcast again and going to rain the rest of the week so there's not even a reason to go outside. And apparently there is NO mail coming for me today, according to Informed Delivery, and I wonder if the mail system IS spiralling down; I sent a bunch of postcards 2 weeks ago and a couple greeting cards and so far only ONE person reported their postcard arrived so I assume the rest of those things are either swirling somewhere in a whirlpool of lost mail, or they just got chucked away somewhere. And again, it makes me feel like: what's the point? I try sending mail out to have a tiny little connection with other people and I can't even have that.

I ordered some really nice Totoro pop-up cards from JetPens, but now I'm afraid to send any of them out because they'll just get lost and never reach their destination, if one in 5 postcards made it and none of the three greeting cards apparently did. Well, maybe one of the three - I guess my mom mentioned her birthday card coming. But still.

Even a stupid ad that gives me a reason to walk out of the house and down to the mailbox would be worth it. 

2 comments:

Roger Owen Green said...

I use Informed delivery. We're getting mail every day. Lots were sympathy cards and a couple wedding anniversary cards.

Mary said...

We belong to a small church - maybe 100 members. We have been members since the 1970's but do not go much. During this pandemic, we have gotten regular calls from different people just checking on us. These are people who we hardly ever see and it has been so nice to connect with them. I think that is one thing the groups we belong to can do during this time to support each other.