Hi everyone,
I've noticed lately among my fascinating 3-D friends that quite a few are nearly imploding right now. Some of it, I think, is because of the ever-extending stress of continuing quarantine and/or restrictions -- personal, ritual, familial, cultural, traditional, whatev.
In some ways the early quarantine, however sad and scary in the aggregate, was stimulating of good solitude or relaxation in more time to rest, even comforting in ways. (Or was to me.) And when it was most intense, nature was wonderfully compensating with animals in cities and much cleaner air. So we all did a year of that. Enjoyed what we could, changed our lives and tested our limits.
THEN we find out that a year was an arbitrary idea. Vaccines are coming so slowly, the government is upside down, new variants threaten, people keep suffering and dying, and there's no magic rescue ship. Only some leaky dinghies being rowed in our directions by very, very old sailors. And if we want in the dinghies, we have to understand we'll all be bailing indefinitely.
I've noticed everything IRL from personality changes to fights to crises to tears to illness to....on and on. It's as though the herd is under sustained stress and nearly fracturing at times. Some of the kind cows who never kick have turned mad. Some are lying down. Some won't eat. Some eat everything in sight. (That would be me.)
I'm shrinking my world even more and trying some really deliberate things to stay connected to others. I don't LIKE Zoom. For all I know doing too much one day contributed to a TIA. But if I do one SOMETHING a day (one Zoom or one good phone convo), and then most Sunday mornings attend an online UU service (this means just letting it play while I'm in PJs and reading something else during boring bits), I can hang on to an expectation that I WILL be in 3-D community again. I am entirely convinced that my sanity and future happiness depend on that, given how I'm made.
This is just a really strange and stressful chapter and I can't imagine it isn't destabilizing to everyone I know in one way or another. I'm trying to tell people I know how much I respect what they're doing, how they're managing. Even telling myself that a bit more often. Thank god for Zoom therapy, too.
Love y'all. The world is hard and weird. The world is wonderful. Nature gives us everything and nature is Honey Badger, who don't give a f**k. Oh, paradox.
hugs
Hops