Foundering

It's taken me a while to return to this. In that time period, there's been a last version of Star Wars, Kobe Bryant passed away, I cut my hair a few times, I discovered the Kit Kat Mint Duo, the other day the US returned to space via the Falcon 9 Space X Dragon Rocket..oh and there's a pandemic going on.

I've had a hard time trying to write. Generally, it's easier to write my brand of life-based reality essays when 'life' is actually going on. My life though, effectively stopped on March 18th, 2020. After that I turned into this, a middle aged woman working in her dining room and wandering through her small home in yoga/pajama bottoms and grubby t-shirts. A woman who no longer gets butterflies in her stomach when about to ascend the stage to perform musical based improv. Who no longer sits atop a high table laughing carelessly with friends and colleagues, a glass of red wine or Lemon Drop martini at her side talking out the vagaries of life.

Sometimes I go back in time and it's like watching a movie that I starred in but much like the Thanos 'Snap in Avengers Infinity War, all of my supporting cast has turned to dust and blown away leaving me the sole survivor of my own life. Relationships I thought I was forging have foundered for reasons I don't totally understand.

Lately, I have vacillated between exaggerated optimism and a distinct feeling of dread which no amount of indulgence in 'junk food' or 'junk television' has been able to exonerate. I'm fragile, I cry easily and often. I'm aware that much of what I am experiencing is no different than most other Americans. In fact, I'm luckier. At the moment, I still have my job.

What I've lost though, seemingly is my independence, my structure, my hallowed and rigidly adhered to schedule. I keep trying to 'lean into it', to try and embrace and accept that this is 'just the way life is now', but some part of me won't accept it. I'm irrationally angry a great deal of the time.  I sleep a lot. Then I feel horrible shame and overcompensate by trying to rev myself up and be the best at everything, cook, cleaner, laundress, employee, daughter. I had hoped to be able to include the term 'girlfriend', but alas it seems that is not to be either, again for reasons I don't understand.

In short, like others I guess...I'm grieving. I want my life back, the old one, where I didn't have to wear a mask to the grocery store, where I laughed and cut up with my improv colleagues, where I wasn't so worried about my aging parents, where it didn't feel like the whole damn world was falling apart on a daily basis. The one where I didn't dread switching the TV on to watch the news.  I want to just hug somebody tight and stay there for a bit, germs be damned.

I'm sorry this is a bit gloomy, but for me it's cathartic. It's hard living with so many feelings inside and not being able to give them voice.

I don't want a 'new normal'. I want the 'old familiar'. Crappy days and good ones. Maybe now though, I'll cherish the good ones more...