312 – Lisa Marie Blair

312 // Something for Me

Even though it’s the weekend, and I’d be off from work anyway, it still feels like the first day of my second quarantine which is feeling more and more like a kind of vacation from all those things that have been terrifying and stressing me so much lately. I woke up light, happy, and feeling more like myself than I have felt in a very long time.

Today was also first time in weeks—months maybe—that I have been able get out of the house and do something for me. Some much needed shopping was done and some shopping that was just for fun. I enjoyed some of it very much, and some of it not at all, but I’m home now, feeling a little tired and very content.

In light of the recent rise in COVID cases I can’t help worrying over my little outing. I hoped the stores would be somewhat empty what with our local officials recommending we all take further precautions but it was quite the opposite out there. The stores were packed. Everyone was wearing their masks but social distancing was nearly impossible and the closeness of all those bodies, breathing all around me, made me feel very anxious. I don’t think I’ll be venturing out into the world again for a long time.

And anyway, too much of what little energy I have anymore is used up during these outings. The time for staying in, for making this house more like home, for resting, reflecting, and recuperating has arrived.

I’m starting right now, spending the evening on the couch wrapped in my comfiest blankets and watching President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris call for unity, peace, and healing throughout the country. It’s such a soothing and calming messages and gives me hope that even if compromises must be made over the next four years they will be made in an effort to move us all forward together because the truth is we are all Americans and so many of us have been left behind in so many ways and on both sides of the political aisle.

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This time change is still messing with me, but in a good way. I’m up before the sun this morning and already typing words. It’s been a long time since this has happened. I hope I never get used to the change, or, since I know I will, that it will at least go on getting easier.

So, it’s done, Zen and Pi is scrubbed clean and sporting a few new design tweaks. I’ll be honest, it was really hard to delete all those posts, but I had to do it so that I could turn that place into something else, something more.

And those old posts, they aren’t really gone, and they will be back, here, someday. I poured a lot of myself into that place so much that I almost wish I had kept going there and turned this place into Zen and Pi, but everything was so mixed up there I needed the blank slate just to figure out the next step.

I’ve started my first draft there, a piece that sums up what I see my philosophy to be right now. It’s not very good because I’m not an expert yet. I’m interested to see where I go from here and how much I change as I write there.

I couldn’t have asked for a better ending to the work week. Work itself was pretty easy. I got to work in the main office which is always more fun (but also more fast-paced) than my usual work. We ordered breakfast burritos and skillets from a popular brunch place nearby and shared the stress and the laughter before heading home to start the weekend early.

Of course when I got home I felt so guilty for the half day off while my wife worked the rest of her day that I spent it cleaning the house rather than getting a jump on my weekend writing goals. Oh well, my wife is on her way home, the house looks better than when she left it, and dinner is already done. It’ll be a good night too.

The weekend will be long, I hope. I have no obligations to dread and look forward to hours to write and to read. I’m increasingly looking to resurrect my old blog Zen and Pi and to turn it into something outside of myself. A place for concrete ideas. A place to take a stand I suppose.

It’s time to do my real work now.