By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (92)

March 7, 2022

Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 2, Day 347: An ill-timed Amber Alert at 1 am woke me up and destroyed my ability to sleep the rest of the night. 😩 It was not good. Smol was up before 6 am which was also not appreciated and so I welcomed the dawn with bones made of lava. Le sigh.

*****

JB’s latest musical obsession is with the soundtrack from Encanto and it’s deeply uncomfortable. The songs cut so close to home and especially after brain therapy, Surface Pressure broke what little remained of my composure:

I don’t ask how hard the work is
Got a rough, indestructible surface

….

Under the surface
I’m pretty sure I’m worthless if I can’t be of service

….

Give it to your sister, it doesn’t hurt and
See if she can handle every family burden
Watch as she buckles and bends but never breaks
No mistakes, just
Pressure like a grip, grip, grip, and it won’t let go, whoa-

I had a particularly tough therapy session debriding old emotional wounds from family pressure to do everything, to shoulder every burden, to fix every problem and mistake that anyone else made even if they weren’t going to stop making them. I’ve been practicing setting boundaries for myself but this latest incident brought all those memories back and reminded me that at my core bedrock self, I have never believed I was intrinsically worth anything. Like Pratchett’s Nutt, I’m required to earn and prove my worth over and over and over, doing the impossible at all costs to prove I deserve to exist.

Undoing that, no, only chipping away at that belief to replace it with a different one feels impossible. An insurmountable challenge. Ironic that I quail at it since those are what I’m known for taking on.

I’ll call it a step in the right direction that I’m starting to allow my health and needs to be a factor in deciding whether I undertake yet another challenge instead of just assuming that I’ll take it in the teeth if that’s what it takes to get the job done.

*****

Smol finally let me assist them using a spoon to scoop up fruit and eat it! I just guide the spoon just enough for them to get the fruit without flinging it everywhere but they’re usually WILDLY insulted that I am trying to control it and screech like a barn owl.

*****

It’s conference week at school and we’re picking JB up at 1 pm everyday. 👀 HOW much work can we get done?? Day 1 of 5: so far, we managed enough. Can we keep hanging on?? We. Shall. See.

Year 2, Day 348: I have to remind myself this might be the lingering effects of yesterday’s pain and exhaustion because why else did walking just a few houses up the street leave me completely winded? And why do I feel like I miss not feeling this way when I can’t actually how it feels to be healthy? I miss what I imagine it’s like not to be in pain and drained to the dregs I guess. I remember the last times I felt like I had energy. There was a day in April 2014. Before that, a few days in August 2012. Before that… I’m not sure.

*****

We’ve been talking to JB about Russia invading Ukraine. Not to be confused with the Russian people because we are well aware that the leadership’s not the same as the citizenry. As evidence, that grifting conniving racist nuclear waste we had in our own White House for four years was representative of the worst elements of this country but he certainly wasn’t representative of my family and our values.

*****

Things are slowly firming up at work in a way that helps me feel like I’m not drowning each and every moment. We’re not on solid ground yet but we are taking many many steps toward it and I have more planned for future proofing, as much as you can do that.

Still, even knowing that we probably need to aggressively earn and save and invest for several more years before we can contemplate a W-2 free path might look like, I keep contemplating what that might look like. At least as relates to earning income because while I’m quite eager to stop running this particular work hamster wheel run, I’m not eager to give up income earning. I like the dopamine boosts of doing something fun/cool/interesting and getting paid for it. Used to be a big boost doing my job but that palls now. Partly that’s because doing the work to be a good manager of people, not just providing product or services or whatever else is a lot of work, and challenging work at that. It’s worthwhile to take good care of your team but after a while, well … People aren’t my jam at the best of times and these haven’t been those for a while.

I’ll enjoy the team I’ve put together as long as I can but I still mentally wander down one path after another considering what I’d enjoy, would also be worth doing, and would be something people would want to support or pay for. Mostly I lack the last, rather crucial element, in any of my ideas.

I finished enough work today that I could either knock off a little early or help out my staff taking some work off their plates. I did that yesterday but decided to exercise some self preservation and choose rest today instead of trying to willpower myself through these bad days.

An 830 bedtime is amazing. Doubly so when my body is willing to fall asleep at a decent hour. I didn’t get a lot of good sleep but I got some sleep which was just short of miraculous. I’m glad I chose me.

*****

It’s interesting how the world through other people’s eyes so much doesn’t match our own. I darkly remarked to PiC that I should read to JB so it’ll help with my feeling like the worst mother in the world and he sputtered. What?? You’re not the worst mom in the world!! That’s *waves wildly* out there!

I know objectively there are worse mothers but I FEEL like a terrible mother because of my inability to emotionally connect with JB these days. It’s not a feeling that’s easy to shake when there are so many instances of failing to connect.

Year 2, Day 349: Smol made it to 6:30 before hollering for freedom and that made such a difference. Will we ever crack the code that leads to a post-6 am wake up, consistently? Is it even possible? Who knows. Best not to hold out hope.

It was a better morning than yesterday though. We all had breakfast, walking didn’t feel like tackling Everest, I pulled a foot high pile of weeds trying to mount an invasion of our yard (again), put Smol to bed after two hours, and got a load of laundry going. Then we got about an hour and a half to work which is pretty good these days. Focus was hard to come by, unfortunately, so it was a slog getting through as much as possible.

Went back to work after a break to mind Smol post-nap with damp knees. Apparently they felt a strong urge to chew on my knees and hug them. Toddlers. Who understands them?

Speaking of toddlers, Smol’s demonstrating more and more independence lately. They wander into the office looking for things to get into, not me or PiC. We’re interesting too but we’re secondary to the messes they can get into.

*****

Sometimes I think about the irony of my mom wanting more than one kid because “it would be too sad to face the hard parts of life alone, having siblings to share the joy and the pain is good”. Having a sibling only amplified my pain. Then again, I was the second sibling so I guess it worked out mostly for the older sibling for as long as he was able to manipulate me for HIS gain. *eyeroll* No real commentary here. Just seeing the irony.

Year 2, Day 350: Our wee terrorist was up before 6 am and then took an absolutely garbage first nap. Less than an hour. I’d managed to set enough things to rights at work, and PiC was stressing over some spreadsheets, so I gave up my morning and minded Smol until noon. They were particularly clingy today but I declined the Carry Me Forever request and countered it with food and playtime. My counter was accepted with very bad grace but it was accepted. We read, played musical duels (I would play a song on their musical toy and the Mischievous Mutt would immediately change it to another song, snickering), built a train set (I built, they sat in the middle of it blockading progress until it was built around them and then laid a leg across the tracks to prevent my conductor from getting anywhere), and read some more books. I’m feeling a little better about their interest in books, I was getting nervous that they seemed not to be for a while there.

I ditched PiC with them at noon to get some time sensitive things done and then blessedly Smol went down for a nap that went three whole hours. I got so much done.

So much done in fact that I had time to help out a staffer as promised but things didn’t line up and the work I was waiting on didn’t materialize. Oh well! I went to make basmati rice on the stovetop and a small chicken pot pie with my leftover pot pie filling and started handling a bunch of personal stuff: researching phones again, redeeming points for cash, figuring out if we’re going to get Bentocart or local takeout next week. I’m leaning towards the latter but I ran across a Thai restaurant that does bacon wrapped scallops and almost fell out of my seat. Want.

Year 2, Day 351: In a Twitter conversation I jokingly defined a “good” day as one where I woke up not cussing the day. That’s actually true to a certain extent at least as far as my initial morning perspective because after that what happens with the kids and what they do can put a real curve on that trajectory one way or the other.

*****

Smol’s solution for being offered a food they didn’t want as much as another food is to kiss it. What???

*****

Weird visceral memory: I was typing away on my phone in the kitchen, meandering and ticking things off my list, when I suddenly felt like I was back on the train in 2006, checking email on my very first iPhone that I’d been railroaded into using (long stale story). How new it was, the weight of this phone, the size of this screen, and the novelty of a touch screen. How fascinating to access the internet while walking, not just call and text, to pull up the train schedule even as I was running down the echoing halls instead of looking for the train schedule at the main hall. How it was to read Something Positive on my commute if I felt like it. I was usually working or reading a book but this newfound access was beguiling. Now in 2021, it’s old hat and I even limit what I can do. Partly because at a mere 64 GB of storage, I’d be giving up fun stuff to add work apps to my phone but partly because I’d like to be ok with not being able to work on my phone. Quick email? Fine. But no more than that. That’s not something I was comfortable with back then: setting (healthy) boundaries.

Now I have to set them all the time with everyone. I may not be totally comfortable with it but I am much better at it and less and less worried about how it comes across. It’s still a sore point with family but that’s something I’m working through.

I also remembered what it was like when I got my first phone and learned to touch text without looking at the screen. That’s a weird one.

:: Do you remember your first cell phone?

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