337 // The Good News

The only good thing about having to work during a pandemic is at least the schedule is light. The first half of the week was hard, but in order to minimize the number of people in the office, everyone’s time is split and Wednesday has become my new Friday. I only have to get through midday and the second half is all mine. Hours to fill as I please, or as my energy or anxieties will allow, though there is more hope for me this week than in many weeks past.

To be honest, I’ve been reluctant to write here lately. For so long now there has been nothing but bad news and worse news. This year, my year, like the year many of you are having too, has turned out to be one of the worst in recent, if not complete, memory and for many more reasons than the collective COVID one.

It’s no secret chronic illness has been kicking my ass and with nowhere to go and nothing to do but work and wallow, there hasn’t been much worth sharing or saying, until today. Today I feel good. I have been feeling good, and I want to share the good news with you now.

Some weeks ago I started a new medication and treatment plan and for the first time in many, many months pain, fatigue, and distress are no longer defining every waking moment of my life. For the first time in many, many months, I recognize myself in the mirror.

What’s funny is, this year has been so hard on me that even speaking that good news scares me. I’m worried I’m wrong or that the improvement was only temporary, a tease, another trick of 2020, but some time has passed now, enough to allow a sense of optimism to creep in.

I can imagine a life that is more than work and sleep again. I’ve been reading constantly and thinking more and more of writing again. I’m excited at the prospect of making something of this last month, even if all I do is spend it preparing for the new year. My expectations aren’t high. Being able to do anything at all is progress. I’m happy and hopeful again, and that is everything.

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Controlling Experience

Writing is control. The part of the university in which I teach should properly be called the Controlling Experience Department. Experience—mystifying, overwhelming, conscious, subconscious—rolls over everybody. We try to adapt, to learn, to accommodate, sometimes resisting, other times submitting to, whatever confronts us. But writers go further: they take this largely shapeless bewilderment and pour it into a mold of their own devising. Writing is all resistance””

— Zadie Smith, Intimations: Six Essays

319 // Catching Up with Myself

For weeks, maybe months now, I’ve been longing for time to do nothing but what I want to do, even if that means doing nothing at all, and finally that day has arrived. The plan is to catch up on much-needed sleep, reading, journalling, doomscrolling, and more sleep.

The weather has taken a strange turn since this morning. The day started sunny and calm, but very quickly the wind began whipping around the house and dark clouds rolled in on it. I could hear trash cans, and furniture, and things blowing through surrounding yards and all day hoped the fences, trees, and power lines would hold upright.

Besides the cold creeping in through every hidden crack and failing seal and the eerie sounds waking me again and again from those much-needed naps, the winds passed with little more than threats and this evening we’ve returned to quiet and calm.

Inside I’m feeling far from peaceful though. Yesterday I spoke with my doctor and we are officially and finally changing course in my care. There are going to be new medications, new expectations, new hopes, and new norms to get used to—again. It’s a good thing really, because what I am doing isn’t working, but change is always scary.

So, in addition to resting, I’m processing what all of this might mean and how I feel about all of it. I’m working hard to practice acceptance, gratitude, and self-love. I’m forgiving my body and focusing my thoughts on how strong I have been through all of this. Moving forward I’ll have to keep being strong and that means gaining a new perspective. That means crawling out of this funk and finding the blue sky, even if I have to wait for a few clouds to pass first.

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Moral Monsters

I’m terrified at the moral apathy, the death of the heart, which is happening in my country. These people have deluded themselves for so long that they really don’t think I’m human. I base this on their conduct, not on what they say. And this means that they have become, in themselves, moral monsters.”

— James Baldwin

I Don’t Know How to Speak

I speak a lot, I mean, a lot of words, and I rush, and it always comes out wrong. And why is it that I speak a lot of words and it comes out wrong? Because I don’t know how to speak. Those who know how to speak well, speak briefly. So, there you have my giftlessness—isn’t it true? But since this gift of giftlessness is natural to me, why shouldn’t I use it artificially? And so I do. True, as I was preparing to come here, I first had the thought of being silent; but to be silent is a great talent, and is therefore not fitting for me, and, second, it’s dangerous to be silent, after all; well, so I finally decided that it would be best to talk, but precisely in a giftless way, I mean, a lot, a lot, a lot, to be in a great rush to prove something, and towards the end to get tangled up in one’s own proofs, so that the listener throws up his hands, or, best of all, just spits and walks away without any end.”

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons (via Erica Avey)

314 // From the Warmth and Comfort of My Couch

Winter has returned today with gloomy skies, steep temperature drops, and fat snowflakes falling off and on throughout the day. Thankfully, I’m working from home and get to watch this weather roll in from the warmth and comfort of my couch.

For the next three days, I’ll be attending a big and important virtual conference for work, and my district has trusted me to bring everything I’ve learned back to my coworkers. I’m excited about the opportunity and honored by the trust but I can’t help feeling a little bummed that the event isn’t being held in person, that I am not staying in a hotel somewhere in a city I’ve never been, enjoying a continental breakfast and networking in the lobby.

Still, there were some very cool moments, including the chance to hear animal behavior expert and autism activist Temple Grandin speak this morning! She is such an interesting and insightful speaker, and I feel ashamed not to have heard more of her talks until now. I fully intend to scour the internet for every video I can find of her. Might re-watch the film based on her life too. Might even buy her book!

Still, not everything has been good today. That great weight that had previously been lifted from my chest has already been loaded back on. My workplace has reversed position and asked that staff members return to work as early as this week.

At the same time, I’m also reading reports that my state is experiencing an uncontrolled spread of the novel coronavirus. I had hoped that management would allow us all some time away to take the precautions we needed and keep ourselves and our loved ones safe, but I guess the priorities have changed.

This all leaves me feeling very…angry. I simply can’t see any reason why we have to come back in so quickly. The students are staying home and the district has agreed to pay us through the next month. So, between the risk of contracting the virus and the benefit of having us all at home (including the chance to disinfect our work areas), I just don’t understand the reasoning.

Underneath that anger, there is fear. Even by the districts own metrics it isn’t safe for us to be at work and without knowing how my coworkers are spending their personal time or what precautions they are—or are not—taking I don’t feel that simply wearing masks, using hand sanitizer, doing our best to maintain a six feet of distance between us will keep me safe.

But what choices do I have?

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313 // Moving Against the Wind

The exertions of the last few days to weeks have finally caught up with me. Every muscle above my waist is sore, and I can’t seem to find the energy for even the most basic items on my to-do list. A can of Redbull and a little music are helping at the moment, and knowing that for the next three days I get to work from home and by midweek my time will be all mine for at least the next three weeks.

In the meantime, I’m simply doing my best and trying hard to let that be enough. It hasn’t been easy though. Everything I touch or try to do today seems to be going wrong, and I’m falling into negative thought patterns too easily. Instead of this mistake being normal, understandable, forgivable, I’m seeing every misstep as a confirmation of some inherent badness in me.

I’m holding these false narratives at bay, for now, but guilt and low self-esteem are threatening like dark clouds gathering on the horizon. I’ve just got to keep moving against the wind and I should make it to the end of the day, but if I stop for even a moment to look behind I know the blue skies will be overtaken and I’ll be engulfed in gloom and doom until morning.

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