and still more

 Having a bit of a "2020 PTSD like" day.

Local school district has shuttered for three days (they already had MLK, Jr. day off but are taking Tuesday and Wednesday) and I guess then they are going all virtual after that. Which means my newest colleague will be teaching from home (school aged kids) so I lose that tiny bit of human contact for a while. I think this upsets me more than it might because I remember March through about August 2020, when some weeks went by where I had no face to face human contact at all, and the only person I spoke with was my mother, on the phone. And I just feel haunted that we're going back to that, and it's very hard for me not to feel like "this is just forever now, your life before 2019 was the good life and you used up all the niceness and pleasure you were allotted back then and you didn't even know. 

Also hearing news stories of various shortages, including a milk shortage, and when you try to grocery shop only once a week - well, shortages make it extra hard. 

I am tired of things being hard. I am tired of things being low-level unpleasant most of the time. I am tired of all the petty annoyances, and doing things like not going out in order to "flatten the curve yet again" and all that and I feel like there's NO reward in it for me at all, that I'm doing things to be maybe pro-social but I see no benefit from it, only trashed mental health and a feeling of doom.

I'm trying to pack boxes but I very much don't want to. It's windy and cold, and I have the live trap still sitting in my car (no where good to put it, and I'm not leaving it outside in case it got stolen) so I can't take boxes over when I fill them even if the gate to the storage unit is open. 

I really do feel like we've fallen through a wormhole that comes out in April 2020, and after 2 years of "just wait another month, things will be better" followed by 'wait another month," I no longer believe "better" is coming. 

I want some reassurance or just someone to hold my hand and tell me that despite everything I'm doing an okay job but no one in my vicinity can do that - everyone is as burnt out and worried as I am, so no one can give comfort. It's a terrible feeling and like I said, back when my dad died it was actually BETTER because I saw other people who were happy and doing well and I felt like "look, there are people who are happy, maybe some day you can be happy again" but now everyone is just - everyone has troubles in some way, either their job is awful now, or they're worried about an immunocompromised relative, or they're working in health care which is truly awful now, or they're worried that their teenager has had "the best years of their life" stolen from them....so it feels like there's no happiness or comfort anywhere. 

I don't think my campus will wind up virtual, we will just keep being pushed to teach online for the people quarantining AND do flexible deadlines and exams but try to keep up the fiction of in-person for the few people who are in class. And you can't do both online and in person the same way,and I do not have it in me to design two separate classes for every class I teach, so I know the online portion is BAD and it allows people to totally check out.....but I also feel like I CAN'T make it better, like I don't have the energy or that time. And that feeds into a feedback loop of THAT MEANS YOU ARE A BAD PROFESSOR AND DESERVE TO LOSE YOUR JOB and.... when I feel like I'm doing badly at my job I feel like everything I do is bad. 

I dunno. I looked at my TIAA-CREF statement the other day and honestly if I just quit I could probably scrape by on what I have saved up (if health insurance weren't a worry) but then again I need to feel like I'm pulling my weight in this world and I really haven't been lately. And I don't know any more. I feel like I should be doing better than I am because objectively I am pretty safe and I still have a job and no one's spit in my face or anything but I am NOT doing better than I am. 

I think a lot these days of the little exchange between Clarence and, I presume, either St. Peter or St. Joseph in "It's a Wonderful Life"

 

St. Joseph: A man down on Earth needs our help

Clarence: Oh, splendid! Is he sick?

St. Joseph: No, worse. He's discouraged.

Yup. If only life worked a bit more like the movies. And no, I'm not standing on a bridge thinking "I'm worth more dead than alive" or anything dire like that, but yes, I am discouraged. I feel like I have very little beneficial impact on the world, and I am also having no fun, and some days it would be nice just not to get out of bed. 

I really thought things would be better by this point, which is probably why I worry that they will *never* be better. (And maybe they won't? Maybe this is just our forever now and the very wealthy will continue to do pretty much okay because they can order in what they need, and they have people around them who at least act like they love them? but the rest of us just face constant discomfort and inconvenience?)