Here I am on my 8th week of lockdown and it is really getting to me. Seeing the world slowly re-emerge makes me mad and jealous. I feel like I am wasting my life, a life I was never promised. I have been on borrowed time for a long time and now I feel like I am squandering it. No traveling, no shopping, no gym, no family dinners, no happy hours, no camping, no drives to Canmore, nothing but living in a bubble of 2600 square feet and another 1500 square feet in the yard. Spring has not quite arrived so I have run out of spring things to do. I am also paralyzed with boredom. There is always stuff to do around the house but it feels pointless, no one can visit, no will see if I have my dishes stacked to the roof or my floors aren’t vacuumed. Chores seem meaningless.
Today has been my hardest day to date. At least while California was in surgery last Tuesday I was prepping the house for her return. I talked to my former doc Harvey for an hour just shooting the shit, talking Trump, COVID, future, health, guns and Cali. It was a nice distraction. I am trying to figure out a way to cope with my new reality. Even when the stores reopen, the gym reopens, the world emerges from this coma, I will not be emerging with it. I am stuck on house arrest until at least next spring. Am I being dramatic? I wish I was. Talking with Harv today and he said, you’re not getting out of there until you have a vaccine and have built up immunity. That is beyond frightening, considering my psyche is very fragile right now. Life for me is shut down. I wish for a different life at the moment.
I have faced so many challenges in my life and they way I got through them is that they had an end. I’d have a nasal polypectomy, get through the surgery and heal, then resume my life. I did 4 weeks of lung transplant rehab and even though I hated it, it had an end date. My point is that the torture had an eventual end. This current incarceration does not have a parole date. I am doing life in prison right now.
Do I sound ungrateful? Pathetic? Dramatic? Maybe. I am grateful that my health is stable and I am not waiting for new lungs stuck in an ICU clinging to life. I am grateful for my brother and best friend Carol for buying and delivering groceries to me. I am grateful for mom and dad delivering me a meal as often as I need it. I am grateful for online shopping, even with the extremely long delivery times. I am grateful for the internet, FaceTime, WhatsApp, pajamas, nestle quik, coca-cola, insulin, antibiotics, pain meds, Netflix, iTunes, ice tea, sudoku, covid mail and porch drop offs. I am grateful for having the discipline to live my Groundhog Day over and over until death do I part. Today is just hard. CF is hard. Lockdown is hard. Life is hard but it is also good. I am fortunate and I will figure out this head mess I have going on right now. I always do. I am trying to find my new awakening, my new reset, me new reality that I have to get comfortable with for a very long time. I normally hibernate during cold and flu season now I am in for that and a pandemic with no end in sight.
Can I tell you something? I get so sick of being a mental Fort Knox, an emotionally stable/numb warrior, “a protect myself at all costs” human.
It’s exhausting, and my friends can’t do my meds, my family can’t do my exercise, my facebook friends can’t read my mind, other people cannot lighten my load and its. So. Damn. Heavy. My world crumbles and I am the only one who can pick up the pieces.
I am alone but I am not lonely. Everyone is checking in on me and that will be critical in my recovery. I don’t want to get swallowed up by this invisible monster. I won’t let it eat me alive but it’s definitely got its talons in me at the moment.
What is going to keep me going? I don’t know. My faith, my hope in mankind, my belief in karmic justice. All of it, I guess. I see the Americans being led by Satan and no one able to bring him down. I see countries not able to bury their dead. I see the number of deaths worldwide jump a lot everyday. I see millions of people struggling to feed their kids, I see politicians leading from the common good not party lines( except the US of course), I see glimmers of hope and then lightning bolts of despair. It’s hard to watch the news, the world is divided on many fronts but together on others. The climate of the world is getting a chance to reboot, to take a breath from all the unnecessary pollution. But it will return to its worse nightmare soon enough. Some believe this is an awakening brought on by God, the apocalypse, the retribution and revelation at the same time. Will we change after this? Will we care for the elderly and the Immuno-compromised during cold and flu season or will we stop to care? Will we improve conditions in nursing homes? Will we appreciate the teachers and nurses and grocery clerks with a wage adjustment. Maybe lawyers get brought down a peg or two and wage disparity becomes more equal? Will we change all the things that created this mess or will we ignore it, once again? Will we learn? Will we love differently? Will we hate differently? Will we search for new solutions to old problems instead of cuddling up with complacency?
What do I plan to do after this is all over, if it ever is? I will continue my physical distancing, I won’t hug strangers, I won’t shake hands, I won’t place the trust of my health into the hands of others (pun intended). I will be hyper vigilant in stores, gas stations, ATM machines, my mail, I will wear a mask, I will limit visitors, I will live vicariously through others, I will be grateful for whatever I can find in any given day, I will find my version of happiness in the depth of darkness whenever times get tough, I will improve my relationships with those that matter, I will teach those who want to learn from someone who has been hiding from people since I was diagnosed with this disease that keeps me shuttered. I will remind the lucky ones, the ones who have their health, to please abide by the rules, don’t stop washing your hands, don’t break the rules, don’t participate with those that protest against the government for taking away their rights, don’t leave your education to social memes and psycho advocates, do your part, continue to do your part. Shouldn’t this be all for one and one for all for once in the history of the world?? What will we learn? Will this change the way we look at the world? Are you awakened? Have you sorted through your priorities? Have you seen the light? Will you live your life differently? God I sure hope so.
N
lungsofanarchy.blog 