"This isn't community"

 I realized something this morning, something I really miss in all of this, the thing of which the absence has probably messed me up the most?

It's community. It's feeling part of something. Even in the classroom now, most days with 1/4 or less of the class present (because it's *so easy* to join online, even as students say they know they don't work as well or feel as connected when they do) it doesn't feel like community or connection.

All the groups I used to be part of have changed:

AAUW: meets over Zoom now. Staring into a screen is not an adequate replacement for in-person, I feel.

Church: very distanced, everyone in masked, lots of people staying home, much fewer activities (no CWF, no bell choir, no choir, no potlucks)

Teaching: as I said above, very few people IN class (except for lab, lab is the one thing that keeps me going), everyone kind of constrained and inhibited-feeling by the need to keep distance

.....and I'm sure there were things I used to do? I don't even remember now. I rarely shop except for groceries. I don't have meet-ups with friends (except rarely over Zoom). There are no plays on campus, there aren't quilt shows, there aren't talks or departmental meals or even in-person departmental meetings. The committees I am a part of seem to be on hiatus. 

And so, I am interacting with far, far fewer people on a weekly basis. And wow, do I feel it hard. 

And I wonder: is that going to come back? I mean, after tomorrow I will be fully vaccinated and in three weeks or so I should be as immune as I will ever be (then again, I am seeing some news suggesting that the vaccines really AREN'T the "you won't ever get it" as promised and more a "you won't die if you get it" and my mom knows someone who had both vaccines and still got COVID). And so I wonder: am I now sentenced to be alone forever, because I don't have a family around me and everyone else is all bubbled up already and none of the groups I was a part of, and could hang out on the edges of if I wanted to, is active?

I think about that and it makes me want to lie down on the floor and never get back up.

Today is not a good day. Oh, I'm sure part of this is lingering sadness over yesterday's news but I am just tired and lonesome and would very much like a hug and just some pleasant casual conversation FACE TO FACE AND NOT OVER DAMNED ZOOM with someone, and it feels like that's as far off as ever. The hardest hard days of my life have been this past year, and it still doesn't seem to be getting any better, and I don't know how to MAKE it better, there is no one I feel comfortable reaching out to and asking for in-person contact.

People tell me "hang on a few more weeks' but honestly, through this whole past year all I've heard is a cycle of "the next month will be the worst month" followed by "in another month things will be better" and then back to "the NEXT month will be the WORST month" and it's hard not to give up

i wish I had married. I wish I had had kids. I wish I weren't so alone in this. I wish I wasn't just sitting here wondering who I care about is going to die NEXT but that is where my mind is at today. 

The only things I can think of that would make me feel better are things not possible now:

- going to a nice petting zoo or sanctuary with friendly animals and just getting to hang around with donkeys or goats or something like that (we don't even have an animal shelter nearby, and if I went there I know I'd be pressured to take an animal home with me)

- going to a museum or gallery or something with someone, just being able to look at stuff and talk

- being "taken care of" in some way - either having someone look at my horrible messy house and sigh, and go, "let me help you reorganize this stuff and then you can sweep the floors and wash the woodwork" or someone to cook for me or do my laundry or something. I am tired of taking care of myself. And no, paying someone feels like not an option; I want it to be someone who cares about me and doesn't feel like it's a burden and I want it to be something where I can reciprocate in kind in the future. It's not the work being done so much as the care behind it.

- Just, eating a meal with other people IN PERSON and not worrying about the risk. Yes our restaurants are open but I'm not going. And I am tired of doing carry out; I might as well scramble an egg at home and save myself the money

- going clothes shopping or shoe shopping with someone and getting help in picking out things. Also that cannot happen, there is no one nearby I can ask and I'm not sure stores even let people try clothes on right now. 

And so, when I need new clothes, I mail order sacky loose dresses and shoes and cross my fingers that the shoes fit and don't give me blisters. And everything feels like a poor thin substitute for the real life I once hand and I honestly do not know how many more "wait one more month and things will be better" lies I can withstand before I snap.

And I also worry that if this is ever over and we can meet again in person that either I will be just totally broken and feral and as a result no one will want to be around me, or that everyone will have more important and meaningful people than me they want to hang out with, and I will be left out in the cold. Maybe this past year has just been hard training for that? Teaching me "you can be alone forever and not die" (though I also doubt if I am this alone forever I won't live to my full lifespan; loneliness does shorten life). 

I know I am in a bad place mentally when the question "what would you do if you had a bunch of free time" elicits a shrug and a "there's nothing I want to do that I CAN do" from me. 

I guess I hang on for another month and hope things are better, but damn I am sick of everything.