By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (207)

May 20, 2024

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 5, Day 47: My sadness meter is roughly around about 100% today. All the layers of grief are making a tiramisu of sadness.

Lots of things I wish I could tell my recently deceased friend.

Way deep down, I keep wishing my mom had been the surviving parent while also wrestling with the knowledge that even if she had, that would have been even more painful because she was really sick and I couldn’t have handled her care plus having kids. It’s not fair that the grifter parent is the one in perfect health. I think there’s a correlation between people with great health and terrible other things (like the people who always dismiss COVID as a bad cold because that was their experience).

Week three of working without my buddy hit me really hard. Or rather didn’t wear off from the wave of sadness that hit me hard on the weekend. If anything, it’s intensified with the start of the new week. I wanted to go on a family walk / hike with my dog for Mother’s Day, but I couldn’t. We had to get out of the house before the thought “my dog can’t go on a walk, she’s in a box now” crumbled me entirely.

We went to explore a bit in the city and it was less fun than I had hoped for. Honestly, I was a little bit hoping for some temporary retail therapy because even if I was still sad, at least I’d have stationery. But nothing appealed enough which is probably a good sign in and of itself that my sadness is too deep right now. We had several run-ins with brightly colored arcade-like claw machine set-ups that had Smol Acrobat moaning dramatically “I want to p’ay a gaaammmeeee” on repeat. That bit was not great but we cajoled them out of it long enough to get out of there and pick up a sack of banh mi for lunch which was well received by everyone.

“Or maybe he ran off so fast because he knew three pissed off soldiers and a kaiju were coming for him.” (Neagley) #Reacher

Year 5, Day 48: Semi-jokingly asked myself this morning: have you tried just not having depression and anxiety? How about we try today?

Can’t say it worked. Can’t say it didn’t work either? It didn’t dispel the depression and anxiety but the awareness that my physical feelings, this puddle of sad and skittishness, is caused by depression and anxiety rather than a personal failing helped me stick to feeling just that instead of punishing myself for being way below 100%. This puddle still stinks but it could be worse.

“I need a dog to be happy” and “I need fewer responsibilities right now” are both true facts and it’s feeling impossible to balance them at the moment so depression is kicking my butt.

I should text the neighbors and borrow their puppy for a bit. I just can’t face another conversation that Sera’s gone yet. Working my way up to it.

This day looked to be a day fully steeped in the tea of depression but then a friend mentioned Huskies singing and reddit and I had to go find this for myself. This is terrible and wonderful and I can’t stop laughing at it. So that was a nice break.

Let me sing to you the song of my people
byu/Vermillion_Crab inAnimalsBeingDerps

This got a chuckle:

Every day my dog takes the biggest stick she can carry home.
byu/kippey inWhatsWrongWithYourDog

My first dog used to do this IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET (he was small though, so I could just pick him up):

Golden retriever not retrieving
byu/padmanabhapillai inWhatsWrongWithYourDog

Year 5, Day 49: Speaking of my inherent trend to frumpiness, it took 13 tries to find 3 dresses that felt like they fit my present body and doesn’t require the dislocation of any single body part to put on, pull off, or zip up. I might have to try to sell off most of my pre-second-pregnancy dresses. That’s disappointing, I liked those dresses. At least now I have enough to get me through a few events that require me to be more dressy than the jeans, tee-shirt and hoodie uniform.

I’ve been putting sprouting potatoes into the containers as normal but some months ago decided to actually pay attention and water them a little every day.

“When you’re invisible, you can have all the amusement you want, without any of the expectations popularity brings.” (Penelope) #Bridgerton

Year 5, Day 50: Today’s theme: doom and dread. All day long all I could feel was this unsettling feeling of something terrible looming over me, metaphorically. Or metaphysically? Maybe both?

By late into the night, I felt it as a sense of worthlessness and terrible motherhood. Everywhere I turned was “proof”: JB’s memories book bulging with pictures and written memories, compared to Smol Acrobat’s slim volume. Even still, that giant memory book missed entire years of documentation because COVID and inability to be three people. I hate this feeling. I tried to walk it off, I tried to go get some sun in the garden and talk to the plants. It only budged very momentarily when that cute puppy rammed my leg for attention.

I put on Reacher this week since Alan Ritchson seems like a decent enough person between sharing his experience with mental health issues and pissing off the MAGA folks who expected him to be as horrific as they are in a recent interview: “Trump is a rapist and a con man, and yet the entire Christian church seems to be treat him like he’s their poster child and it’s unreal. I don’t understand it.” His mother remains staunchly Catholic, but he quickly swats away any associations. “It’s worth saying that the atrocities that are happening in the church that are being actively covered up, even to this day with people not being held accountable, is repulsive,” he says, as the tenor of his voice changes. “I can’t for one second support the Catholic Church while there are still cardinals, bishops and priests being passed around with known pedophilic tendencies.”

I always want to support the folks who speak the truth about this stuff. Also, I like Neagley.

I’ve been hanged, swung over a fire, and nearly shish kebabed on razor sharp spikes. How do you mortals get from day to day, y’know?? (Aries) #Xena

Year 5, Day 51: I can’t think of a routine health appointment I hate as much as eye exams. Give me a dental cleaning any day. I’m always left feeling somewhat hung over and nauseated after the dizzying array of slides and bright lights flashed in front of my eyes. Even worse, the dilation lasted more than 3 hours, and so did the accompanying headache.

I forced myself to take it easy for at least an hour, and eat lunch so I wouldn’t feel like I was completely wasting that time, and then finally got back to work later in the afternoon than I wanted to. Lucky we cancelled the dinner for our friends that we were planning to host, this would have been extra stressful. Maybe next time I have to have an eye exam I can also take the rest of the day off.

Do you know what is romantic? Security. #Bridgerton

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