This is one of the bad days. I have four or five days that are pretty okay, and then a day of being down, and about every three cycles or so I have a day of REALLY being down to the point where I would almost sell my soul for someone to just hold my hand for a few minutes. This is one of the really bad days where I am casting about desperately for something to look forward to in the future or a reason for concrete hope and finding nothing.
Edited to add: a big part of this is it's SUMMER. I hate summer here. It's hot, there's no rain (I probably killed some of the plants I bought earlier this year by being afraid to hobble out and put the sprinkler on them when my leg was so bad earlier this week). Without teaching - which I haven't done in recent years - I have very little to organize my days around, and this year is even worse than normal - used to be I'd go in every day and see at least a few colleagues, now it's only the secretary and the one person teaching an online summer class. So the loneliness I normally feel in summer is compounded by the EXTRA loneliness of lockdown, where I can't travel to see family or friends, can't go antiquing, don't have church.
Things may get better when classes start back up, EVEN IF they wind up being all online because at least I will feel like I have some purpose. I do not do well living "just for myself" which is what this feels like.
So apparently the news today is some are pontificating for a national lockdown, some people saying 12 weeks.
I can't, guys. I can't stay on stricter lockdown than I'm doing now (grocery store, with very occasional side trips to a pharmacy, going in to my largely depopulated classroom building, and the very, very rare masked-up trip to the small local quilt shop or garden center). I CAN'T. I need this to be over. I am going nuts. I am so lonesome, I am so bored and boring and losing what brain I had - I can FEEL myself declining cognitively.
I can't teach this coming semester from my living room. It was okay in March and April when we were all collectively freaked out and I was actually thinking "Well maybe by July things will have improved to the point that we can even travel again"
NOPE.
This is how we get martial law, isn't it? A strict lockdown gets pulled, we get told, "You need papers to circulate," everyone gets assigned their day to grocery shop - if there even ARE groceries - and otherwise you're indoors, 24/7. And it will drag on past 12 weeks, I bet. I wonder if the election will be cancelled.....
I won't survive that.
I am quite serious about it. Twelve weeks of this, I won't make it. For a while I was marking off days on a calendar but it just got too depressing. I didn't even change the calendar on the wall to July until yesterday.
But because some people were idiots about distancing or masking or maybe avoiding the bar for a couple weeks, and because the first lockdown was squandered (no robust way of testing people), I will maybe....just not make it.
I feel like I am contributing zilch and doing nothing. I might as well not exist.
Maybe this IS the end of humanity. God, why was I even BORN? I have done nothing, I am nothing.
IF it really were, like, four weeks or something and we were PROMISED it would end, I could do it. But this endless, relentless, reliefless, hopeless, nothingness - I can't. I can't any more. Or at least, I can't for much longer.
I haven't had a face to face conversation, a real conversation, with someone for....oh, months now. Yes, I face time with my mom but that's awkward and strange. I haven't been hugged in forever. I haven't done anything fun in longer than I can remember.
There is nothing I could buy or be given here in my house to make this better. I said on twitter, "The people who locked down early and stayed home should be given free access to ALL the streaming services and be given a piece of in-home exercise equipment of their choice" but even that wouldn't fix it.
I'm never going to see my mom in person again. I guess I just have to accept that. She'll die, and it'll be even worse than my dad, because I won't be able to go up there and all the stuff in her house will just....have to sit there or will have to be sold with my brother and me a long distance away and all the family heirlooms will be lost and all the pictures I didn't get copies of will be thrown away and everything is desolation.
I've hung on for so long. I am really not sure how much longer I can hang on but nothing is getting any better. I am out of hope. Stubbornness is all that is keeping me getting out of bed in the mornings any more
4 comments:
If you have a car, go for a drive. If not, call a cab or one them new-fangled cab services. This is still a free country, you can still go places. You don't have to stay home.
Does your library have virtual/zoom groups? Ours has book clubs, cooking groups, yoga, etc. if not your local library, maybe a bigger one somewhere in the state? It can be helpful to join SOMETHING where you can interact visually albeit remotely with other humans. This is so hard and I understand that depression will cloud your view of anything offered (and that physical pain like with your leg just makes it worse) but sometimes just one small step can begin to lift you out of the funk.
Let me say that during the hardest time of my life, when my daughter was sick, I survived by focusing on one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time. This is not unlike that time, and I am coping by focusing just on TODAY and trying not to look ahead. Please try. — Grace
I take walks every day usually the same route. I start to see the same people - not close as we social distance. I notice that nearly everyone says hello. Sometimes it is hard to get myself out but am always glad I went.
Another suggestion is to get a pet. I got one from the shelter. I got an older cat (about 7 yrs) as I am old enough that I might not outlive a kitten. This cat was abandoned and even after a month she is a little skittish but she loves to be petted and held. Makes both of us feel good.
These are just my thoughts. I have followed you for a long time because you write so well and also I enjoy your knitting and quilting. I have a sister and a niece who both teach in college and I know the worries that are happening now. My niece teaches international students and that situation is really bad.
Best wishes. Mary.
My wife and I social distanced on our porch Sunday with a couple people from church. It was good. But weird.
I think you should try it. You can do the mask and the distance and it's not awful.
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