Statuses

I got my goals out for the week, but to be honest I wasn’t as focused or motivated as I wanted to be today and very little in the way of progress way made. This week will be off to a late start, but Tuesdays are as good a day to start as Mondays. I plan to get up early and to start my routines and rituals right away so writing can be a priority for the rest of the day.

The sun was out but my knee is still giving me trouble, so I couldn’t go for a walk like I wanted to. I’ll try again tomorrow. I have to get out and into the sun soon. I have to move these bones and stretch these muscles. I have to spread out in the world a little.

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This afternoon my wife got an email prompting her and the rest of her team to discuss plans for returning to work next week. I’m worried it’s too early and terrified of the risk she may be taking as an asthmatic. I’m not even sure the Governor’s orders allow for her workplace to open and meet the requirements to keep everyone safe and healthy. I just don’t understand. Why do we have to get back to normalcy so soon?

FOr the rest of the world I somewhat understand. The system sucks, but it’s the system we are stuck with and money reigns supreme. Most of us can’t eat, keep our homes, have water, electricity, internet, or healthcare if we don’t go back to work soon, but my wife and I are not one of those people and neither are the powers that be deciding our fate. School is cancelled for the year and we are all still being paid. What’s the rush?

I woke up today and quickly realized that my knee was hurt bad. I think I irritated the joint while working out a few days ago and now it’s swollen and forcing me to spend much of the day seated and on ice. There’s a lot to do around the house though so I’m up on it as much as I can be. The kitchen is a mess. The bathroom needs cleaning. The laundry needs folding. The snake enclosures need attention. The plants need watering, and a lot more. I’m opting out of dinner cooking duties with the promise, the hope, that things will be better tomorrow.

It was a bad writing day again. I can’t think past the pain and the things I have to do so I spent my time doing those things and listening to podcasts to calm me and to sooth my loneliness while my wife works. The good news is I did just about everything I set out to do. The bad news is I still feel bad for what I couldn’t.

I’ll never quite get over how little Sundays feel like Sundays when Mondays aren’t anything like Mondays should be. The only thing that has stayed the same is how little I loath to start the week. The transition from weekend to work week is a painful and regular reminder that time is still passing away. With more time to think and more mental space to pay attention, I realize I miss days that do by. Perhaps this is one of those things we use work and relationships to distract from. I miss last week. I miss yesterday. I miss an hour ago.

I can’t imagine allowing myself to feel this loss on the scale of years.

I got out of bed early for the first time this week. I’m trying to squeeze an extra hour out of the day to look over my to do list for the day and start my journal entries.

It’s an hour before my wife and the pets wake up, so I have to limit my activities to keep the house quiet. It’s nice because it means I can only write or read and I can’t make coffee first thing when I wake up. I can only have water, which is much better for me, anyway. When she wakes up, the day can begin and the expectations start, those from her, from the world, and myself, but for now I am just me and there is nothing but peace. This is my favorite part of the day and I wish I was able to get up early enough to enjoy it more often.

Still, despite the early start and the enthusiasm, the words aren’t flowing as easily as I’d like. I’m stick on this assignment and growing more discouraged by the day. It’s been four now and I still can’t figure out what angle to take or how to go from this germ of an idea to a whole essay complete with paragraphs and a beginning and an end. I may try free writing but that sounds lame, or maybe I’m just being hard on myself.

Today is a better day than yesterday, or it was. I set an alarm for 6:00 AM, but I slept right through it and lost over an hour of daylight. I still haven’t been sleeping well and waking up is getting harder again. I do have the morning routine down so it’s easier to get moving, get cleaning, or writing, or reading, or whatever I feel like doing.

My wife had a long work conference this afternoon, which always makes me feel a little more shut in and stuffy. I have to try to keep quiet and the “creativity room” become off limits to me. The walls close in and this small space grows more suffocating. Not only that, but I am jealous. Even though she is working, she gets to interact with people outside of this house. I can hear laughter. I can hear them asking after each other’s health and catching up over current events. It made me feel overly sensitive and irrationally hurt and somewhat ashamed.

Afterward an old friend of hers invited her to join their family happy hour party on Zoom and the feelings only deepened.

Of course, I can always reach out to my own family and friends and organize a Zoom meeting or video chat if I wanted to, but it always feels better to be the one invited rather than the one doing the inviting, doesn’t it? I know that isn’t right, or it shouldn’t be. I know that if I want to feel less alone, I have to be the one to make the first move and I think I really will. I’d like to plan a virtual version of our old “Margarita Fridays” we used to have with our friends next week. I’d like to plan a Sunday family day too, but I don’t really know how to plan it, yet.

Today was not a good day. I woke up too early and with a pounding headache and though copious amounts of caffeine and aleve have blunted the worst of the pain and fatigue, I’m still feeling very low and blah.

I tried to push hard to get through all the things on my to-do list. It was slow and tedious going, but I’m happy with what I was able to do. It seems like my wife and I are working on similar house and spring cleaning projects, only I am a day behind her. Yesterday she rearranged much of the kitchen and today I deep cleaned it. Today she organized her desk and half of the “creativity room” and tomorrow I’ll do my side. While I’m in there she’s going to start on the basement and by the weekend, I’ll be doing my share down there too.

I had the energy to focus on straightforward tasks, but writing was out of the question, though I have the germ of a new idea beginning to grow. A personal essay I’d already been thinking of writing that I might be able to tie into my first assignment of the Memoir and Personal Essay course I enrolled in. I have a life event, an emotion, a story, and a point but within the piece you’re supposed to reference and tie in a greater global event that was happening around the same time as this person was impacting your life. This is where I am drawing a great big blank.

The truth is, I didn’t try all that hard either. I’m feeling really down about this isolation and I’m growing more concerned about our financial future. My wife and I discussed the idea of me getting a temporary job to help get us through the summer and keep our savings intact. This sent my anxiety through the roof and I felt some initial guilt for not wanting to do it. It’s just been a long time since I’ve worked anywhere else and I afraid.

Everything will be okay. I know that. I’m just having trouble believing it at the moment.