Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (74)
November 1, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 225: My Anxiebees were incredibly active today, slowing down my brain processing by a factor of ten, and inspired a new design (women’s V-neck; standard tee). I stopped to make those to burn off some of that oppressive worry / stress / brain fog / creeping depression / fiddly twitchy feelings.
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I had Royal Pains on in the background while I was working and Henry Winkler’s character — can I just say, MAJOR FLASHBACKS. That scene when he and Evan talk about his taking all their money: “You’re gonna get your money back, day or two, week tops.”
That exact same expression on his face is what was on my dad’s face when I was following up with him on getting the money back from the loan I’d made. That lying manipulative asshole expression of “trust me, I’m your father” when he really meant “trust me, I need to take more of your money.” That shook me pretty hard. I still can’t deal with these flashbacks. I think about how angry Hank was, and how angry I am, and how that tracks as we were the responsible siblings. How easily Evan forgave him, I still can’t wrap my head around. Maybe it’s because he had a protector, where neither the Hank character or I did.
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I finally asked Michael’s if they were still going to ship my fabric. They confirmed that the fabric was still in stock, and that their warehouse was just ten days behind. I started to ask if it was ten days in addition to the two weeks they’re already late but decided that doesn’t matter. It’ll get here when it gets here, it definitely won’t be in time for me to get through my holiday projects. They sent a $10 gift card for my trouble so that was nice since there’s nothing they can do to hurry along the shipment. I guess it’s a good thing I bought that back up fabric after all. Now I just need to learn to sew on the machine! 😬
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I decided to browse Hello Kitty things just to soothe my overtired, overstressed anxiety brain this evening. The pings of cuteness surely must generate some dopamine? Especially since I’m not actually trying to buy anything right now, I’m just soaking in the goodness of simple fun cuteness. Though I wouldn’t say no to a Hello Kitty blanket. Who wouldn’t want to be all wrapped up cozylike? (Suddenly it becomes clear to me why JB is the thieving magpie of blankets that they are. Even though they run ten times hotter than the normal human, they inherited my burrito gene.
Year 2, Day 226: Wow, something clicked on for Smol and they’re suddenly using the push walker like they’ve got experience with this walking thing today. They scolded JB like an old crank when JB ran off with it, and again when JB left them at the end of the hallway unable to turn around.
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I hate interviews so much. Even when I’m the one conducting them. Hate!
It’s so fraught trying to figure out if you’re the right fit for each other based on information they wrote down and a forty minute conversation.
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Oh another thing I’m jealous of? Folks who can actually take care of their health. Folks who have the time and money to actually prioritize their medical needs. I am so tempted to throw in the towel these days on those grounds alone. Between the physical aches and the emotional scars, the fatigue and the cumulative stress that’s opening the door wide for depression and anxiety: I wish I could just quit working to rest and then figure out what many things are wrong with me.
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On the medical note, I’m overdue for a physical and finally scheduled it as a video call. This is how it’ll actually happen, otherwise I’ll keep struggling to find a date and time I can fit in a one hour errand in my day and it just won’t happen. If I must go in for bloodwork, I can drop by the lab at my convenience mostly, and if I must be seen in person for any of my issues that can eventually happen but at least this way I can have the conversation with the doc to start with. Maybe now is a good time to explore whether there’s a medical cause for my extreme fatigue that I’ve been living with for so long.
Year 2, Day 227: The one time Smol sleeps in until a glorious 745 am is when we all needed to be up much earlier. >< I still appreciated the extra sleep if not quite so much the surge of adrenaline of trying to get everyone out the door in time. We did get there but goodness, it took hours for me to settle back into my work groove.
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PiC is off work the rest of this week starting today, he needs to use up some vacation days before he maxes out, and while this didn’t specifically translate into fewer things for me to do, it did probably have a direct correlation to my anxiebees only buzzing me starting at 3 pm and not at the usual 9 am. Since he was taking care of car maintenance and grocery shopping, we still split the childminding but it made SUCH a difference that we weren’t also juggling his work schedule.
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Last night JB couldn’t even be bothered to say good night to me directly, they sent PiC to do it for them.
Tonight, they asked me to snuggle with them for a while. They haven’t asked for that in almost two years. Kids are … Unpredictable?
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As part of our typical roles in celebrating our ten year anniversary this month, PiC is doing all the shopping and cooking (where he’d normally do all the research and book a nice new restaurant) and I’m buying assets for our future. In this case, I’m moving some of our emergency cash into ibonds since they have an actual interest rate, unlike our bank account paying less than one percent. Teamwork!
Year 2, Day 228: I have to alter my theory. It wasn’t PiC being off work that kept my anxiebees quiescent. It may have been being off the computer for hours. I sat down to do a bit of work and shopping research at 630 am, having gotten up with Smol at 610 to let PiC sleep in for a treat, and by 645 they were buzzing up and down my skin. So that’s not great. But that’s only two data points in the hatch so really, not much to go on. I continue to try all the things to trim down the burnout and quiet the ‘bees.
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I had planned to wrap up work a little early tonight and while not as early as I’d have liked, I did manage to get away from my desk by around 430. That’s pretty good!
Oh! I shared by email to the existing list of contributors and on Twitter but not here: I’m doing a final push for our Lakota families for the year. I wanted to be done with shopping by the end of next week since shipping is so terrible right now – getting the orders out now to avoid the year end November/December pile up seems wise.
If you were planning to contribute, now’s the time!
Please send as a gift to admin@agaishanlife.com (PayPal) so that they don’t take a big chunk out of the donation. They charge fees for both payments and donations (and then I’ll also have to pay taxes on the “payment” next year).
Enough contributions flowed in from the email and tweets that I’ve started working on some families, but the bigger families always need a lot more funding to get even one full outfit per kid/family member.
Year 2, Day 229: I had my long overdue physical by video conference and I’m glad I did. It threw my whole schedule off for the day and I’m utterly drained BUT it was good to talk through all the things I’ve just been gritting my teeth through: intense chronic fatigue, increased anxiety, scattered focus, random inflammatory and noninflammatory pain. We spent an hour talking about symptoms and possible diagnostics, she’ll go do some research to see what options we have for specialist consults for the chronic fatigue and the anxiety. Even if it’s just a temporary fix, we might look into some medication to hold me over while we’re trying to get through this pandemic situation.
As much as we are grateful for the big stuff: income, a safe home, our kids, our health (ish ish in my case!), this is still incredibly hard and stressful and there’s an enormous gap between being ok and being suicidal and in crisis.
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I think I’ve figured out our open enrollment changes this year. While people are always banging on the HDHP / HSA drum as the most financially beneficial route to take with healthcare when available, and it can be for a lot of people, I’ve discovered that it doesn’t work so well for us. The benefits are lower because CA taxes contributions and earnings, and I have to contend with my own beancounting nature with regard to the out of pocket max. Our old healthcare plan was super comprehensive with a clear list of reasonable co-pays for every procedure imaginable. The new one was opaque and infuriating, we didn’t know how much anything would cost until after we committed to the procedure, and then I had to bite back my frustration as the costs mounted. That plus losing our regular FSA with a normal HMO plan and getting just the limited FSA (dental and vision only) further reduced the benefits package for us.
In the end, I am prioritizing taking care of ourselves with a normal HMO plan where we can and will seek care when we need and want it instead of planning around the least fiscally impactful health care choices.
Outsider observation: I know you’re going through a lot and feel like you don’t have time for stuff . . . and yet I keep being impressed (and jealous) that you can be so thorough about chronicling your experiences two or three times a week. I have great health and no small kids, but I’m barely keeping my head above water at my own job and feel like I barely manage to blog at all.
So that’s something, isn’t it? Thanks for all of these peeks into what you’re thinking and what you’re going through.
I appreciate your saying so! ❤️
I switched from an HDHP plan with an HSA in 2020 to one without an HSA with reasonable copay for typical care. I think financially it was pretty close but the stress of not knowing what bill I would get with the HDHP wasn’t worth it. I’m a long time blog lurker and also impressed with all the things you managed to get done with the ages of your kids.
I agree strongly!
And thanks so much for being a longtime reader, and taking the time to comment!