Lisa Marie Blair

Tag: May 2020

  • 139//366

    Went into work.for the first time sense early March. So much has happened and changed since then. Not just the spreading of the virus and the lockdown orders and reopening guidelines, but also with me personally and my relationship to my coworkers and to work as a whole.

    The day went much more smoothly than I worried it would. Wearing a mask for four hours is pretty awful and staying six feet apart isn’t as easy as I hoped it would be, but it wasn’t so bad that I felt anxious or frustrated. It will take some practice and some getting used to too.

    The day before the district shut down I was promoted, so this was also my first day in my new role. Surprisingly, and quite comfortingly, not much seems to have changed between me and my coworkers. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean, I was always respected for my work and all that had ever been missing was the title and the compensation. Finally, everything has fallen into place and work feels more right than ever.

    I only stayed for four hours but it exhausted me to be there even a short time. I’m not used to being out of the house for so long or to being around so many people. I was home by lunch, and shortly after I was napping on the couch. I lost hours trying to recover from all the new social interactions and I still don’t feel quite myself yet.

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  • 138//366

    Today is the first Sunday in months that feels like a real Sunday. I’m thinking more about work than I am about the freedom and the goals I had for today.

    I’m trying to remember all the goals and joys I had at work. I’m trying to remember who I was two months ago when life was put on hold. I’ve changed a little since then I think. I’ve grown in ways I am only begining to become aware of. This time alone, this loneliness, these hours outside of time where I could belong to myself as fully as any human can hope for, have shown me something I never would have seen, who I and and what kind of life is like to have.

    My job is a good one as far as jobs go but it’s not how I’d like to spend my life. I’m not sure what that means, if I could or want to even change it, but it’s s feeling I can’t shake and a fact I cannot unlearn about myself. The future is more uncertain than I can even begin to comprehend right now.

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  • 137//366

    Another lazy day. It’s okay. I feel fine both emotionally and physically. There is a little guilt, a little panic, and a little excitement bubbling below the surface. Next week life begins again, and I am mentally and emotionally freaking out. It’s not so much the work or the people but the changes, the new way of operating and the etiquette that I’m nervous about.

    A lot of my anxiety is social. I do not like when I either have to meet new people, or meet people in a new setting, or when for any reason the social norms or expectations are ambiguous.

    I’m afraid, I guess, of looking stupid, of offending, of not being liked. It sounds dumb, but in the time of Covid-19 there are expectations about masks, about how close to stand, and about cleaning and hygiene. There are offences over your level of concern or belief about the virus, its origins, and the government’s response.

    There is, for people who over think the details most never even notice, a lot to think about and navigate.

    I comfort myself by remembering that no one knows how to act or react right now. There is no right or wrong, just whether you care and are willing to correct or stubbornness and recklessness. I do care and I am willing so I should not feel afraid.

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  • 136//366

    It’s hard to believe that in just a few days I will be back at work again. I haven’t seen that place or any of my coworkers or friends in over eight weeks and the idea of seeing them again Monday morning is making me feel increasingly excited, anxious, and afraid. I’m trying not to think about it though. When I do the guilt over not doing or accomplishing more than I have these past few months.

    I keep trying to remember that no one expected anything from me but me, that it’s okay I took this time to rest and to sometimes do nothing, and, that considering how quickly and dramatically the world changed there was no way to properly plan or emotionally prepare for a long time away from work and in isolation. I did what I could, and that is good enough.

    So tonight, instead of trying to get back to my old sleep habit and routine, I’m staying up late and having a few drinks with my wife. I’ve decided to be even less productive than I have been and to focus on myself for the next few days. No writing. No reading. No big projects. Just doing whatever I feel like for theses next few days. I’ll get back to work when I have to, and not a second before.

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  • 135//366

    I had a good walk this morning. I’m still feeling sore and worrying that I am pushing myself too hard, but I’m committed to giving myself a week of this and seeing if my body can adjust. If, in a week, my joints are locked up and throbbing, then I will cut back but it’s just a walk, a little over two miles a day, and that doesn’t seem like too much to ask from myself.

    It’s been nice to get to know my neighborhood in a way I haven’t in all the years I’ve been living here. I’ve walked these same sidewalks before, but to do it day after day, to watch the tress, the lawns, the people, move from one season into another, to experience it in this pandemic where we are all so much more connected with those around us even if we have to keep our distance. I’m seeing it all, even house, intersection, and person, with fresh eyes and understanding.

    I’d like to keep this up after I return to work, but I’m not sure what that will look like. I will have to walk earlier, or much, much later. I hope my wife will still go with me too. Of all the things I, we, have been able to do these past months, this is the one thing I want to hold on to.

    The rain has been rolling in and out all day and taking my energy and focus in and out with it. I haven’t been able to work on the drafts I started yesterday, but I’m not pushing myself too hard right now, anyway. These are my last days that will belong to me fully for a very long time, if ever again. Yes, I will have weekends always, but even they are rushed and filled with worry and preparation for the workweek.

    One thing I have learned during this time is how much of my time and how many of my decisions belong to or are because of work. The truth is nearly all of it was and I have a job that is very clearly separate from my home life. I have a job I can’t take home, so it must be so much worse for others.

    These next few days will have no expectations or obligations imposed and going forward there will be, there have to be more days like them.

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  • 134//366

    I just got the call from work asking me if I’d be willing not only to return to work next week, but to coordinate the schedule and duties of my team too. My first task in my new position.

    I’m a little scared, but I feel ready to return. I’m scared to get sick, obviously, but I’m also anxious to start building new work habits and to know what things will be like now since there are going to be a lot of changes to the way we work. For now, we’re only allowed to work 4 hours a day and we’ll have to keep our distance from each other which will make things difficult but much of the summer work is done outside anyway so we should be fine.

    More than anything though, I’m ready to be around people again. I’m ready to be a a part of something, to feel useful, important, and respected again. It’s amazing how much of work life turned out to be my actual life, and it’s surprising how much I missed what I thought I resented the most.

    Honestly, I’ve never been happier with my workplace, my supervisors, or my team than I am right now for their foresight and support through this pandemic. They’ve really taken care of me and motivated me to come back more motivated, willing, and connected to my work than ever,

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  • 133//366

    The clouds were still lingering this morning when I woke up and the cold made me want to skip my morning walk. My wife took the dog without me and I immediately felt disappointed and angry with myself for not having the willpower so, after working my way through some to-do items I’d been putting off, I put on my running shoes and headed out on my own.

    I decided to try out the track at the high school instead of walking the neighborhood. Normally it gets a little too packed to practice social distancing well but I went at just the right time before too many people had the same idea. The clouds moved on and the temperature rose quickly limiting how hard I could push myself but what little running I got to do felt really, really good.

    Back home I took advantage of the motivation I felt and managed some yard work and some real progress cleaning out the basement. Not a bit of writing or reading got done, but it still felt like a productive day. There are more than a few ways to feel accomplished and useful and sometimes it isn’t in creating something but in taking care of yourself, your home, or your family instead.

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  • 132//366

    It’s a gloomy, rainy kind of day today. Neither my wife or I wanted to get up and go for a walk, but the dog was begging so badly I decided to take her on a quick jog around the block. It was misty and miserable out when we went, but I’m glad we did. I’m trying my best to get outside, to get some sun and get moving every day and as good as it feels I still find every excuse not to go.

    A little cold, a little tired, a little sore or grumpy, all to me are reason to skip it but once I’m up and moving I see how flimsy those reasons are and how easy they are to overcome. That is, I’m learning to see through my own bullshit.

    I don’t know if it was the clouds, the late nights lately, the new daily walks, or the IBD flare-up I’m worried is coming on, but I am feeling especially exhausted today. After lunch I found myself overwhelmed by the urge to curl up under a blanket and sleep. I could not have fought it if I’d wanted to. I’m glad I didn’t try though. I need the rest and without it I know I would have spent the evening dragging my useless body around and accomplishing nothing.

    Sometimes we have to fight ourselves to get anything done, and sometimes we have to give into ourselves for the long term good. Much of life lately is spent trying to discern between the two.

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  • 131//366

    I’ve decided that, on mornings when I know I won’t have time to write or do any of the little quiet things I usually do, instead of being angry or resentful, or stressing myself out by trying to grasp even a few minutes of me time, to simply let it go.

    I can’t write when I’m rushed and quiet time is useless when I’m in a bad mood, anyway. So, this morning I went on a nice walk again with my wife and the dog and it made all the difference. There will be more time for what I want to do later, but for now I can walk it out, get a new perspective and still find a sense of accomplishment.

    We’re celebrating Mother’s Day today by stopping by my mother-in-law’s and mother’s house for a quick gift drop off and visit. We’re going to do our best to keep our distance and to watch what we touch and to wash our hands as soon as we get home.

    I have a lot of anxiety about whether this is right or not but I know that eventually we are going have to find a way to see each other, safely. I don’t know if it’s time yet but when will it be time? This new coronavirus isn’t going away. We will have to live with it and for now I think making sure to keep our distance, not touch our faces, and to wash and sanitize after visiting is the best we can do.

    Both visits went very well. I’m happy to see that all of our closest Colorado loved ones are still doing well and to get to talk to them face to face. It was a little jarring though. It’s been so long since we’ve been around other people. We’re not used to the noise or the energy it takes to have a conversation.

    The visits drained me. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I only mean it in the natural and normal way. When I got home, I needed calm and silence again. I couldn’t do anything but lay in bed, eat snacks, and watch TV.

    I keep thinking about what it will be like when I go back to work and hoping that the proposed idea of us working staggard shifts and short hours. I’m sure I’m going to need to ease back into interacting with people. It was exhausting already before. It’s going to be much worse for a while why I adjust.

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  • 130//366

    I got out for another morning walk. The more I get out there the easier and easier it is to find the willpower. It was especially chilly out there and I was very tempted to turn back after half a block but I made it the whole two miles and before I was halfway through the sun was out and I was warmed up. When I got back in I felt really good. Proud, energetic, and optimistic, but things changed pretty fast.

    By midmorning I wasn’t feeling so great. There’s a possibility I’m having a flare up my ulcerative colitis symptoms and I’ve been spiralling ever since. I’m not sure what could be causing it, but I have a feeling it’s the increased physical activity. Stress is a triggering factor and exercise I suppose is a kind of stress on the body.

    It doesn’t really matter though. The issue is more emotional than physical right now. It took me months and multiple medications to get the last flare under control. I was in pain, and often house bound. I do not want to go through that again. Not to mention each flare seems to be worse than the last. The next flare could mean drastic changes to my medication and care regimen. It could mean hospitalization or surgery.

    But I’m getting ahead of myself and doing the exact opposite of what I should be doing right now. I’m stressing myself out over unknowns and giving my immune system all the more reason to attack. So, after tonight, I have to relax. I have to rest, eat right, meditate, and think happy and hopeful thoughts only.

    I have to play the wait and see game for a few days and sometimes that can be the hardest thing to do. The second hardest is admitting you need help. Admitting you have to take a step back, again, and that there progress you’ve made had been undone and now your health depends on whether or not you have the strength to face that.

    But even that acceptance is a week away at least. For now, I’ll be watchful, caring, and gentle with myself for some time.

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  • 129//366

    This morning was another rough start. I woke up still exhausted, though I don’t know why I should be. I fell asleep before 8:00 last night, a full two hours before I usually do, and I still woke up late and felt so groggy I skipped going on a morning walk with my wife.

    A few cups of coffee, a light warm up work out, and the sun coming out from behind the clouds turned my mood around, and just before noon I was ready to venture out for a few errands. We started at the lawn and garden place up the street. Normally I love browsing this place but there were way too many people which made it very hard to maintain six feet of distance and made me so anxious I couldn’t enjoy the trip at all.

    The other stores we had to go to were much better but seeing everyone wearing masks and waiting six feet apart in long lines to enter a store and to check out makes me feel like I’m living in a dystopian novel and all I can think about is when or whether the world will ever look the same again. It’s good to get out of the house, but it feels much better, and safer to be back home.

    Not much else has been accomplished since. I spent the rest of the day updating post tags and catching up on old articles I’d been meaning to read. Boring things, but at least I tried not to pay too much attention to the TV. I’m alternating between sitting at the kitchen island and sitting at my desk in the “creativity room”. Very soon I’ll be back at work and the days won’t be my own anymore so I figured I better start practicing writing and reading in the evenings again.

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  • 128//366

    This morning was a late one. I try to be out of bed by 6:00 though 7:00 is more typical. Today neither of the alarms roused me and I have no idea how long I would have laid there if my wife’s voice for the other room around 9:00 hadn’t startled me. At least I hit the ground running once I was up.

    I went for a long walk this morning. I’m trying to get serious about losing my quarantine weight and getting back to healthier eating habits. These past couple of months have been awful for my will power and motivation, but I’m starting to get a handle on how to fix it. The first thing I need to do is start limiting my options. I’m going to try not to buy so many snacks and to change the ones I do over to healthier options. The other is to have a schedule and tracker going and leverage my reluctance to “break the chain” to get out walking and exercising more.

    The afternoon was spent in the “creativity room”. I finally made some real progress getting through the mountain of notes and long hand drafts littering my desk. Half of them were tossed. The ones that were grocery lists or work related. I now have a neat stack of scrap paper to turn into proper blog post, essays, or poems. There was also a scattering of magazine scraps I’ve used in the past for collage art or found poems. I saved all I could find and I plan to remix them into new pieces.

    For now though, I’m just enjoying having a little more elbow room to type freely. I’ve spent the last week or more trying to turn the couch or the bed into a workspace and they have been far from conducive to focus.

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  • 127//366

    I’m feeling a little better today. There isn’t as much cleaning to do or projects to complete. There are fewer obligations competing for my time and attention and less guilt weighing me down.

    I spent the morning catching up in my to-do list, logbook, and journal documents and setting some goals for the week. I also finished up a week of The Science of Well-Being, though I still need to work through the printouts. I have two new blog post ideas floating around and if I have the time and energy, I’ll get to them this evening but I have a feeling it’s going to have to be something I put off to tomorrow.

    I was right. The entire afternoon was a wash. Lunchtime came sooner than I expected and next thing I knew I was in the bed, cozy and losing hours to sleep under the warm sun and the cool Spring breeze.

    I want to regret it, but one of the best things about these warm months is the quality of sleep you get. There’s nothing like the speed and depth and duration to which you can sink into sleep when it’s just a little too hot outside. When it gets bad, I have bouts of sleep paralysis and no matter how awful that is I tell myself it’s only because the sleep is so good my body isn’t ready to leave it even if my mind has too.

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  • 126//366

    Today is nowhere near as relaxed as yesterday. My anxiety has returned along with all my bad feelings about how much time I’ve wasted these past weeks and how little I’ve accomplished over my lifetime. Too much time in your own head can cause some pretty dramatic self-esteem swings, it seems.

    I think it’s because I have a feeling my little corona-quarantine-staycation is coming to an end and I’m feeling a little panicky for a lot of reasons.

    For one, I’m afraid. The novel corona virus hasn’t gone away and I haven’t seen anything that makes me believe we are past the worst of it. I’m dreading having to wear a mask all day too, and to spend so much mental energy of remembering to disinfect surfaces and equipment and not to obsessively worry that I haven’t. I’m also sad. It’s hard to admit because of all the suffering going on all over the world, but I kind of enjoyed this time at home. It felt like time outside of time, something I have been wishing for for a very long time.

    Still, it looks like I won’t be working long hours and maybe not even every day. Summer might still be saved after all.

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