I woke up this morning and my body was begging me, “Please, do not fight the world today. Please let us rest”. I heeded the plea and showed mercy to myself for the first time this week. I could have fought tooth and nail through the day and dragged my exhausted body to the evening, but I simply didn’t want to. I simply shouldn’t have to.
So, I stayed in and rested. I spent the day doing little more than sleeping and scrolling. I was utterly unproductive and I refuse to feel one second of guilt about it. And you know what? It turned out to be a good day in the end.
In the beginning, it wasn’t so much. All the rest in the world doesn’t seem to be touching the exhaustion I feel. My limbs are heavy and I’m not entirely sure it’s down to an entirely physical ailment. I have a feeling that depression is slowly creeping in.
I wallowed longer than probably I should have, but part of me knows I needed it. No one can keep their disappointment, grief, and pain at bay forever. Some days you just have to let your emotions take the reins.
When I felt the self-pity had run its course put on some music, took a long shower, and washed the negativity away. By the time my wife got home from work I was much more myself again, though still exhausted, still weighed down by my own worries and anxieties and all the uncertainties we all face while the world falls apart around us.
The worst part of living through “Covid Times” is having nothing but work and your private worries to fill your time with. The small joys I have been able to find do not always tip the scales enough. I miss so much of my life and I feel hopeless in the face of the bleak fall and winter I see rising over the horizon.
Lisa Marie Blair 