Trauma

 It was March.

It was Covid.  All covid, all day, every day.  Endlessly.

No one knew what was happening, what was going to happen, what had already happened which would then influence what was yet to come.  In the span of just one or two days our city went from normal life to completely shut down.  The streets were eerily empty.  The highway had no traffic.  Stores were dark and empty.  In just one week us hospital workers were in full PPE gear and learning how to live a life we didn't have instructions for.  

One day we didn't have enough PPE, then the next day we did, then we didn't again.  One day we had to wear masks, and then the next day we had to wear face shields, and then the next day back to masks.  Later on we had to wear both.  Nurses and doctors got sick.  People died.  A lot of people died.  Everyday.  Alone.  We lived in a place of grief and fear and learned to live that way while grasping hope and exhaustion in each hand, sharing the best we had inside ourselves with the people working side by side with us and trying to hold onto enough 'self' to carry home to our families. 

We learned to live in isolation.  We gave up hugging our children and each other.  We learned to wear clothes with bleach stains and shoes that sat in our trunks whenever we weren't at work.  We bathed in sanitizer.  And we did it day after day.

Then it was July.  

It was summer, and blue sky, and warm air, and it was... different.

It wasn't ALL covid, ALL day, Everyday.  It was... different.  

Our cities and towns were only partially locked down.  We could shop, eat out, go to the gym.  At the hospital, we only needed PPE for some patients.  We kept the covid positive patients just on one floor, not every floor. We rode on the shuttle bus again.  We were used to wearing masks all the time and had learned to be safe as a matter of routine.   We hugged our children and walked our pets, and hugged each other too.  The memory of sitting in a parking lot praying and crying before every shift seemed surreal, like it had been just a nightmare, or that it had happened years ago and not just months.  

We learned to teach our kids via zoom and google meet with their teachers.  We learned to embrace family and friends via marco polo and facetime and other platforms that kept us safe, but in touch.  We worked more normal hours.  We felt... different.  We laughed.  We lived.

Now it's the end of November.  

Time flew by so quickly.  Quicker than we ever thought it could.  In the span of one week we have been thrust heart and soul back into the grasp of Covid.

All Covid, All day, Everyday.  Endlessly.

We ran out of blue plastic isolation gowns this morning.  We ran out of alcohol swabs too.  We had a school teacher with covid on our floor and her school has been shut down.  My own child is due to start back at school in a couple of days and I got an email last night that one of the staff had just tested positive. The sense of dread is so heavy.  

The weight of worry and fear is something we hospital workers carry in our pockets, in our backpacks and purses, slipped into the folds of our clothing, we carry it everywhere we go, once again.  We didn't hug each other at work today.  I won't hug my child tonight until after I've showered, and then disinfected the pathway from the front door to the bathroom. Even then, I may wear a mask. They say this is "the new normal" but let me tell you, THIS? This is NOT normal.  This is trauma.

May God bless you and make His face shine upon you, and onto all of us.

Girl

 He calls me "Girl".  

At the end of a conversation, he says, "Ok Girl, I love you!" 

Sometimes maybe in the middle of an important discussion he will say, "Hey Girl, you are OK,  really, you know?"

And I know.  I know he loves me.  I know I am, at the end of it all, OK.  Because he said so.

I'm not the only one he calls "girl", but in my mind I am the most important one.  In my mind I am the FIRST one.  In my mind, I am the BEST girl, ever.

He is my big brother and I am his one and only little sister.  I always make him tell me that I'm his favorite little sister.  He always agrees.  Every single time.  I am the only little sister he has so it's not a big stretch but still... it matters to me.

I will be 51 this year.  He will be... uh... I dunno... 58? 59?  

He will be old.  

Older than me.  

I am still a baby... his baby sister... his baby "girl".

He will be recovering from hernia surgery, from a COPD diagnosis, using a full time O2 tank, recovering from a foot surgery, and recovering from the loss of his beloved puppy dog, and adjusting to a move from Hawaii to Arizona, mid pandemic... He is undergoing a LOT.  And I am 2000 miles away, unable to see him, touch him, hug him, tease him, mock him, irritate him, annoy him, and be the little sister, the "girl" that I am supposed to be.  It hurts me to my very core.

I remember him holding me when I was 6, scared and alone and missing alllllllll the life I had known before that moment: I was 6 and my parents were divorced and my mom worked 40 hours A DAY (no exaggeration) and my brothers were all I knew of safety and love.  

I remember his girlfriend being MY friend, playing Barbies with me and giving me lunch and being my companion during long lonely afternoons.

I remember him coming back home after having gone away to stay with our dad for what felt like years but was probably weeks, and bringing me a Snoopy Dog stuffed animal from the airport - I remember discovering his ear piercing and him begging me not to tell our mom... I remember him letting me cut his hair and the awful mullet I gave him and how he didn't even care...  

I remember him as a new dad, just a handful of years older than me, holding his new baby boy and trying to figure it all out and still making me feel like I was special to him.  I remember him standing by me while our mother died.  I remember holding HIS son, and feeling close to him at the same time. 

I remember visiting him when our older brother was sick and wouldn't let us see him.  When we were both of us filled with anger and grief and fear and frustration and so so so much sadness.  

I remember his voice, over the phone, talking to me about our momma, about alcoholism, about addiction and grief,  and about our dad and his life and our step-dad and his life, and every fucking thing ever about life as my brother, as my friend, as the one person I love more than fucking ANYONE.   

I remember him easily, think of him all the time, because he is still present in my life every day; but I always have the underlying dread thinking of that moment when he won't be there, when he won't be HERE, when I won't hear him call me his "girl"... and tonight I weep in advance.

I've seen my aunties say goodbye to their sisters, to their brothers, to grieve the loss of their siblings, their special "someone" that understood their past... and I've felt angst for them, knowing that someday it will be me, losing MY brother, losing the ONE person to call me his "girl", and feeling that loss so deeply and intimately and in my very foundation.  Oh how I dread that day -  the day when I am no longer Rick's "girl".  

I feel bereaved too, in advance, of my own children losing their siblings.  Will Steph lose her littles, the ones she helped raise?  Will Noah lose his right hand, his one and only little sister, or his anchor, his one and only big sister?  Will Hannah lose both her guiding lights? Her big sister, her big brother?  What would our family look like without our "boy"'s, or our "girl"'s?  What will Griff grow up to be without the maps that his older siblings forged?  

How will I ever get to the end of the road if my big brother doesn't map it out ahead for me?

I am his "girl"... I sure hope he leaves a roadmap for me.

Welcome to 3rd Grade; and Life 2020 style

Wednesday 9/16:

 I'm sitting next to my boy; my twitching, wiggling, standing-sitting-standing-crouching-sitting, snapping, clapping, dabbing-dancing boy; and trying to get him to focus (for the love of  God, man, just FOCUS!) for his very first day of all remote learning on a google meet platform he's never used before.  He hates it.  I hate it.  "It's just day one though," I keep reassuring him (and myself, truthfully).  "It's just day one, it'll get better! I promise!"  

I'm not one for making promises that I can't keep, but over the past 7 months I've drifted towards placating hopeful false promises that I'm not really sure of but are the only ones I can muster up.  "Its ok, it's gonna be ok, really!" That's one of my most used ones.  I hope the universe forgives me.

I'm grateful for the mute button on google meet.  Most of  my running commentary as I sit next to my bored, restless, remote learning hating son, is alternate versions of  'stop! don't do that! put your feet down! good job! nice effort! ewww!'

We finished school and I only cried once.  We all took a long, independent break for the afternoon and then made an excursion to the outside world, with masks and sanitizer, for some retail therapy.  Maybe that was just for me though!

 Thursday 9/17:

We start fresh.  We sorted out the computer issues and my wiggly boy started out on MY laptop while his school issued chromebook lay on the floor in the corner of my bedroom.  We read the emails last night and printed out the assignment in advance.  We had a good hot breakfast and were ready to go at the right time.  I unplugged my fully charged laptop so I could plug in the desk lamp.  

Cue the dark music and crickets.  

1.5 hours into the day, when the teacher was walking everyone thru logging into and accessing assignments and how to turn them in, the laptop died.  I quick plugged it in and tried to reboot.  nope. not gonna happen.  It took a solid 30 minutes to finally set up the chromebook and get back on to the classroom.  We did math outside while my wiggly boy slid and swung and climbed and wiggled.  It was kind of awesome honestly, and also horribly stressful!  Balance, right?

I'm hoping to re-engage with my sense of balance, the way I did all those years ago when I had to quit my job and stay home to care for my sweet boy.  In the last two years I've lost my sense of balance entirely.  I became so entrenched in a grown up personal relationship (and the drama/trauma of it) that I lost my connection to my own self, to my role in the big picture of my own life in general.  When that relationship fell apart, I had nothing left but the drudging work of living solely as a single parent who provides.  Also?  At the same exact time? Pandemic....  

I'm hoping to return to myself.  I'm hoping to return to my friendships and relationships, my connections to my adult kiddos and my internal drive to have - yes, i'll say it - FUN and joy and peace in my life.  It's a hard, slow, painful road due to Corona virus/pandemic lock down, but I am determined to live this one life I have as best I can.  However hard it might be in the dark valleys, alone, and unsure of what I'm striving for, I'll keep going.  

I hope you keep going too...

A Beautiful Mess

It's been a long time since I've written regularly.
There have been parenting successes, and failures, and then successes - a lot of  balance in life; total upheaval, job changes, life changes, growth and discovery, joy and sadness and then more joy;  finding the love of my life and how he made every day better, and then my heart shattering when it all fell apart.
It's been months now since that moment.

Today I got up. 
I showered. 
I did the "thing" that single moms do - I survived.  Today I fed children and cleaned up after pets and I bought more food to feed those ever-hungry children, and I fed them, again.  I drove my car and paid a bill and watered some plants and then planned an evening involving a baseball game and dinner and prepping for tomorrow.  There is always tomorrow even when I wish there wasn't.

I'm tired in ways I've never been tired before.  All of us are tired right now.  We are all tired of fighting for the rights of others, and for ourselves, fighting for what is right in general, all the while trying to be safe, trying to keep our children, our friends, and our families safe.  We are all tired of fighting to make every end meet, to burn our candles at both ends without burning out, to burn a light in the darkness without burning up.  I'm extra tired of doing it all alone. 

I'm extra. 
Extra tired, extra alone, extra burning out, burning up, burnt down entirely.  I'm tired of reaching out when I know that I have to.  I'm tired of "self care" and "living juicy" and "living whole"... I'm tired of living, of trying to do it with grace and panache and positivity and a good attitude and a grounded spirit.  But I don't have a choice so I keep on going.  I am necessary to my children, and I don't take that for granted - but I'm so tired these days and even tired of trying to do it all in a way that keeps my children living juicy and whole with grace and panache and positivity...but I keep trying. 

Sometimes The Words Are Hard

I have another blog.
I have OTHER blogs, truth be told.
Some are public and some are private.
I am more than just THIS space.

Your zinfandel eyes
Your darkest alcove
My red chucks
My craziest bed-head
My craziest
Your darkest
Us
We began
and
We ended
Do you cry too?

Sometime in April, 2020

A month ago I went out to dinner with the man I loved; the man who loved me back.  We ate at a Thai restaurant and he took a picture of me and said, "My heart is so full!"  We were just 6 weeks past a discussion about marriage; a discussion we'd had more than once over the past 2 years... and that date was the last time I remember feeling loved, and in love, with that precious man. Corona Virus, or Covid 19, happened in real time, just days later.

We were already semi-aware of Corona Virus, but more as an encroaching threat, a thing for the future, and even though I worked in health care it wasn't yet a front line fear; and so we went out and had dinner and made love, and promises, and had hopes and dreams.  That was then... this is now.

Today I left work, at a major hospital in a major city on the east coast, and I cried all the way home.  No, that's not right, because I didn't just cry, I wailed.  I screamed into the universe of my small empty car.  Alone.  I prayed, loudly and from my very soul.  I cried out to God, who I felt distanced from in this moment, for myself, for my coworkers, for my friends, my family, for my neighbors, my community (and my online community)... for my children.  It's how I've spent every day for the past month - in absolute agony and fear and grief, and also all alone.  I am not scared.  I am terrified.  I am 50 years old and healthy and strong - but I am also alone and there are Covid 19 victims younger than me, at a rapidly increasing rate - right in my own hospital - on the very floor I work on - and I am full up of fear.

I am afraid of dying alone; not of dying, I want to be clear on that - but of dying alone.  I am afraid of leaving my children alone.  I am afraid that one of my own children could die and I am NOT strong enough to withstand that, I know this, not alone.  I am afraid that the two brothers I have left on this earth as true family, could die - WOULD die in fact, if they contracted Covid 19.  And I would be alone to navigate that grief.  I am afraid of losing my remaining aunties and uncle, my few cousins, my rare and true soul-mate friends who are in the high risk category (which is changing and encompassing younger and healthier people daily).  What will I do without my big brother Ricky?  Without my friends Karen or Golden? What will my kids do, without me, or me without them?  How will I die alone without a true love to hold my hand and see me off into heaven?

As my LEAST favorite cliche says, "It is, what it is..." Oh how I hate that cliche.

All I can do is live in THIS moment - and that is really the problem.  THIS moment is full of fear, and stress, and emptiness.  I told a friend today that in my loss and grief I was returning to the faith that had seen me through so many other losses, and that I so very much wished she had the same comfort.  As much as that is true, I am still just one small human being, and I wish so much that the man I loved one month ago, who loved me back, was still available in this moment.  As awesome and mighty as my God is, as my faith is, as my belief is, it isn't a human form that can hold me after a long day with sick and hurting people that I can't fix, a long day with scared and stressed nurses who can't fix their patients, a long day listening to administrative orders and knowing it's not saving lives but saving money.  I need to be held and there is no one to hold me. 

I can't find the balance right now.