My New Year's Resolution

This year was a dumpster fire.

In truth, the year featured a lot of actual fires: Australia, California, probably other places I don't know about.

But the general consensus I'm gathering from my various social media feeds is that this year was a particularly hard one, and that is the truth for me too.

Aside from having to completely rearrange my life around a global pandemic and then watch tens of thousands of people die because of people who would not do the same, concerning myself with the business of extinguishing the world's actual fires, and experiencing the collective stress of extremely publicized race-based violence, the sadness that goes along with that, and the inherent discomfort in reflection about my own contributions and participation in systemic racism.  Aside from all that, I enjoyed some significant personal struggles through 2020 as well.

And I see many of you out there starting that inhale so that in just over 12 hours you can let it all out in a collective sigh of relief.  

I won't be joining you.

Though I have often felt in the past that flipping the calendar year over has signified some new beginning, this year, I'm not holding my breath that moving from zero to one is going to make any impactful change in the problems I've been facing, some alone and some with the rest of the world.  In fact, I am confident that I will still experience strife through 2021.  

So, if there is a new me in the new year, it's not one that is going to start losing weight or eating better.  It's not one that's going to be more fun and enjoy life more.  Truthfully, I spent a lot of 2020 losing weight, eating better, and stopping to smell the roses when I could find them.  I'm going to keep doing that stuff.  And that's really what the new me will be all about.

My New Year's Resolution this year: I'm just going to persevere.  I'm going to resolve to have resolve.  I'm going to just keep going.  Because 2021 is going to come at me with all the same challenge as 2017, 2018, 2019, and yes, even 2020. All I can do is keep going.

Having said that, I acknowledge that there may be those of you out there reading this with worry that I've given up on life or that my outlook has darkened.  It may be the case that I'm approaching the coming year with a certain level of resignation.  But if it makes you feel better, take heart.  I assure you: if 2021 has roses, I'll smell them.

The Longest Day

 It's my birthday this week.  I had a dentist appointment recently that got cancelled.  2020 has been the longest day ever.

I say that because it really feels like yesterday that I was turning 36, and I don't mean that in an "Oh, time flies!" kind of way.  It literally feels like it happened yesterday. (Time does fly, though.  I accidentally wrote 26 there instead of my actual age and then felt wistful when I realized I was 10 years wrong).  My cancelled dentist appointment was a yearly follow-up which I recall was followed closely by a root canal, the pain from which had been necessitating that I consume several bottles of ibuprofen every week.  I only just realized that my back bottom right molar has been in its current state of endodontic repair for almost a year and not, as I had previously believed, just a few weeks. I have this terrible feeling that I blinked and I'm a year older.  While most years feel like a whirlwind or a rollercoaster, this time it just felt like warp speed.  Like we started in March 2020 and now it's November somehow.

At the same time, I feel like we've been doing this quarantine thing since forever.  

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Anyway, around my birthday, I try to set some goals.  

This past year I've been working on getting my (figurative) house in order. I've been prioritizing better sleep, meditation, yoga and exercise and I think its made the quarantine more manageable.  

With the hope of a vaccine coming sometime in the next 6 months, I think this is time to consider how I want to fill the time that's been vacant (or, more accurately, filled with extra work) all this time.  Normally, I feel like my life is a whirlwhind or a rollercoaster.  It's thrilling, but I when I get to the end of the year my brain feels pretty jiggled and my hair is in a crazy windswept beehive.  This year moved equally fast, but the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction as far as stimulation goes.  I think what I'm after is some kind of metaphorical rail journey.  There's no slowing the speed of time, but at least this way I get to enjoy the scenery without accidentally swallowing a bug.

I Needed a Win

 It's been a hard week.

The second wave has finally arrived in Niagara and it's raging through one of my long-term homes like a wildfire.  You know what that means.  I'm feverishly refreshing my referral page to get food, fluids and supplements into sick people in the hopes that maybe they make it through their illness.  The guilt that I get to do this from the comfort of my home is palpable. I can feel the cortisol coursing through my body right now.  

Between trying to extinguish a COVID outbreak with jello and supplements and an email from a senior colleague at another job letting me know about some documentation I missed from a client interaction several weeks ago, I haven't felt like a particularly competent dietitian.  

Because I'm fighting those fires I mentioned above, I haven't really had time to do the other things I find rewarding.  Exercise and leisure pursuits have been difficult to get to and difficult to enjoy when I do have time for them because I feel guilty that I'm not doing more for the people I work for.  Even though I objectively know that I can't pour from an empty cup, taking the time to refill feels like time I should be spending pouring.  

Tuesday rolls around and I realize I'm also experiencing the collective anxiety of the unknown that awaits us as millions of people head to the polls just to the south of me.  I recall the morning of the first Wednesday in November 2016, driving to work at the southern tip of the Niagara Peninsula looking at the Buffalo waterfront some 1000 meters across the Niagara River from me and thinking how lucky I was to be living on this side of that water where the Great Pumpkin could never hurt me.  How wrong I was.  Though his governance hasn't had a direct impact on me (in any way that I could quantify here, anyway), I hurt from the divisiveness and hate of which he is a symbol and which he seemed not only to condone but also to incite.  It's been a hard week, but it's been a hard four years.

Point is, I needed a win this week. I got one yesterday.

I'm not foolish enough to think that this solves everything.  I'm almost ready to begin my relaxing bedtime routine so I can be fresh to keep fighting that COVID fire.  That's not going to go away tomorrow because a few states turned blue.  And neither is the divisiveness and hate that's made me and millions of others feel so hopeless.  But watching the results roll in from Tuesday to Saturday at least made me feel like the hearts and minds of a few more people have changed enough for me to hope that there might be a few more wins to come.  Time to fill my glass.

Sick

 Remember when having a cough was something that just happened randomly from the months of October to April?  Your friends might bring you soup if you were really laid up.

Now we're in this weird place where every sniffle is an alarm bell that we might be ground zero for a super spread.  My husband developed a cough on Thanksgiving weekend; we had felt safe visiting with our relatives that we had included in our bubble throughout the pandemic because we generally have been maintaining a pretty consistent bubble, social distancing, and masking.  Nonetheless, my husband started with this croak-y cough on Saturday evening.  I was mortified.  If I think about the real, non-COVID world, this seems like a really trivial thing to be mortified about.  How many times had I gotten the flu over the Christmas holidays when I was a university student?  But now, it's not.  It could be life and death.  Luckily, my husband was able to get a same-day COVID test as soon as we got back and the next-day results were negative  We had only passed on a minor virus to my mother and her husband to battle in the following week.

This week, it was my turn.  I started Monday with a sore throat.  It was my only symptom, one which is a classic sign of a week-long sinus infection for me, and the pre-screen for work told me I should still attend, although I did get a call from infection control on the way to tell me I had to get a COVID test ASAP.  I already had one pre-booked for another job.  It took longer for my result to come back. It was negative, as I suspected it would be.

But the wait period in-between onset of symptoms and when I finally got my test results back was odd.  Messaging people with whom I had pre-planned meetings and appointments to discuss my symptoms and the likelihood I would have my test results back by meeting time seemed like the right thing to do, but also seemed like a strange conversation to have in the context of a non-COVID world.  I wonder if it's something we'll continue to do when this whole weird world eventually resolves.  

What I have learned: wearing a mask with a head cold is harder than wearing a mask without a head cold, sneezes have smells and they're not great, and most people are appreciative of a pre-meeting symptom discussion.

No News

 I've added writing to my to-do list lately.  I'm finding it somewhat challenging to do this regularly because life has been so stand-still-ish so it doesn't feel like there's anything much to write about.

Way back when I was trying to be hot person, I would sometimes look at situations and think to myself, "Will this make a good blog post?"  Often, it meant subjecting myself to some small (or large) degree of embarrassment in the name of entertainment.  I never really became a hot person.

I was visiting some friends in pre-COVID times, and despite not having seen them in over a year, neither of us had much to report.  Then we talked about some friends whose marriage had fallen apart after a failed attempt at opening it up.  And we all agreed that we've come to the point in our lives when no news can be good news.

So life is pretty ok.  I work.  I go to the gym. I meet with friends for outdoor/socially distanced activities.  I go on baking and cooking adventures on the weekend.  I read books. I ride my bike.  I knit and sew things.  I play the piano.  I teach myself the guitar with limited success.  My husband and I play boardgames once or twice a week.  Life is ok.  And that's nothing to write home about.

Moving On

Anyone else feel like they're on a hamster wheel right now?  Like you're working really hard to get somewhere but the scenery hasn't changed a bit? 

I remember talking to a friend via messenger back in March or April and talking about three months from that point and thinking this would all be over.  It's been almost 2 months since that future we were dreaming of came and went and there's no real end in sight without a vaccine that may or may not be available within the year, and even if it is available, to whom?  How safe?  How effective?  

In the meantime, we're all trying to fit ourselves into a new normal without really knowing what the new normal is yet.  Though we've all had our moments over the past several months, I think our nerves are fraying and the walls are wearing thin.  Despite the separation and isolation, we're really starting to see some people for who they really are.  We just aren't as polite as we should be because it's just really hard to deal with constantly trying strike a balance when the scales keep moving.

I think we'd all like to be able to move on with our lives, but it's difficult to know how to do that without knowing what the new normal is really going to look like.  Many of us had set the ball rolling on major life plans that had to be put on hold when the world shut down and it's still not clear if we can pick up where we left off or if we have to abandon that ship and start building a new one out of what materials we can find lying around.  

I'm being deliberately vague, but that's because every story is different and also because energy is scarce to lay it all out.  But we're all waiting and seeing.  For the border to open.  For a vaccine. For a bigger bubble.  To go back to work.  

There's nothing for it but to keep moving on, but it's hard when we don't know where.

Coming Up for Air

I quit my job last month.

One of them, anyway.  And started a new one.

The overwhelming atmosphere of the coronavirus pandemic for me, thus far, has been that I have to keep working.  I have to work just a little bit more.  Because if I don't work enough, people that are under my care will die.  At least that's what I think I was feeling when I look back.  When I was in it, I didn't really feel anything.

This job I quit has always been a little more than I bargained for.  I was never able to fully get on top of things, and always spent more time there than I had budgeted.  Then they had a COVID-19 outbreak and it felt like every minute that I wasn't working was time I wasn't spending getting calories and fluid into people who were too sick and weak to do it themselves. The worst (but maybe best) thing was that I wasn't able to actually be there because of provincial public health rules, so I felt like I was just guessing a lot of the time. I lost touch with a lot of things and people during those months.

Then this windfall job fell in my lap.  I had applied for it months ago and not heard anything so I wrote it off.  Even after I was interviewed over the phone, I had no inkling as to whether I had got the job or not.  Anyway, it's mine now, and I left my time-suck position with some degree of relief and a significant amount of guilty feelings.  But then, I had to train my replacement, orientate at the new job full time on weekdays, and somehow complete my other contract obligatons on evenings and weekends (which, thankfully, the privelege of working remotely allowed me to do).  It was like running a marathon only to realize at the finish line that there's a pack of wolves behind you and safety is another 3 miles away.

The new job: it is not a dream job.  No guaranteed hours and a pretty big cut to my hourly wage.  But it has potential to grow into more.  And right now it comes with something I've felt like I haven't had in months...maybe even years.  Time.  

For the first time in I-don't-know-how-long I don't feel like every day is a race to cram in as many things as possible and hope I don't miss anything or have to delay anything important because there were too many important things.  It feels like I've been holding my breath for a year and I'm finally breathing again.

It'll Be a Good Story...

This past weekend, my husband and I drove to our family cottage for an unwind weekend.  The fan motor on our central air had a factory defect and our house is HOT, so we headed north for some cooler air and some time without fewer screens. 

On our first morning, my husband woke up early to digestive distress.  He was upset because the sun was out and the air was nice and warm without being too sweltery and he was stuck inside running to the bathroom every half hour. 

His upset resolved around 10:30 and we decided it was safe to go for a bike ride.  We chose a familiar route and wheeled away.  It wasn't until we reached our turnaround destination, some 15 km from home base, that we saw the dark black-green clouds surrounding us...leaving only a small patch of blue above our heads.  We had one errand to run and I thought to myself, "We're going to be racing this home."

COVID times and courtesy dictate that only one member of your party enter the store, so my husband went in to make his purchase and left me to watch our bicycles.  No sooner had the door swung shut behind him than the rain began to fall on me and our bicycles.  It started with a light sprinkle but swiftly transformed into sheets and sheets of torrential downpour.  I sought shelter under a cedar tree lining someone's property on the roadside.  My husband ran out from the store.  We stood under the cedar tree hugging each other for warmth as Mother Nature hurled bucket after bucket of cold rain on top of us.  I counselled my husband to keep his bike helmet on lest it turn to hail.  Which it did.

When I heard the thunder, I recalled my girl guide training and thought we should seek shelter in the store we had just patronized rather than remaining under the tree's natural lightning rod.  The proprietor allowed us in, asked us not to drip on anything, and requested we sanitize our hands...COVID times again. We stood in his entryway, slowly saturating the carpet beneath us, waiting for clear skies or rescue.

We were rescued by my cousin in the neighbouring cottage who happened to be coming into town for groceries.  We drove back with our bikes strapped to the rack, marvelling at the number of downed trees and how quickly some chainsaw-wielding do-gooder had removed them from the roadway. The cardboard box holding the cord we had purchased, as well as the emergency toilet paper in our saddle bags had turned to mush.

It was a terrible morning, but it'll be a good story.

I'm hopeful this is a metaphor for our times.

The Return

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I had feared this moment.

Guys, I'm having return anxiety.

I know that many of you are out there and you can't wait to get back into the swing of things and back to work and back to shopping and back to eating in restaurants and hugging your loved ones.  But I'm scared.

I've been asked to start going back to one of my jobs this week, and this has me thinking about two things.

1. The world is fundamentally different from the one I left.

I haven't actually been in a real public place since March.  In that time, I haven't been in a store or a workplace more than once or twice.  There are new protocols in place, but I've been ensconced in my curbside pick-up and porch-delivery safety zone and I haven't acclimated to the new normal.  Not that my old normal was to go around hugging everyone and sneezing on everything, but I'm nervous about the necessary COVIDiquette and how my ignorance of it will affect how I move through the world.

...And speaking of ignorance...the other way that the world is fundamentally different is, of course, the recent Black Lives Matter protests across North America, and how I, as a white person who really feels like an ally, can come to terms with the privilege I've grown up with and how I can use my privilege for good.  I am trying by calling out microaggressions and have made small financial contributions to Black-led advocacy organizations, but I'm sure I have done more harm than good in my life and my efforts as an ally definitely do not outweigh my shortcomings.  It's a lot, but there's nothing to be done but keep doing.

2. My life is a lot less busy right now and I kind of like it.

I mean, work has been a trip.  Even though I don't have a commute, I have been chained to my laptop for many hours to git'er done from home.  That being said, I've had a lot less in the way of extra-curricular commitment and it has been really nice to have some breathing space.  I do a lot of things and I'm thinking that not all of those things are as fulfilling as they should be.  The fact that I'm feeling anxious about going back to them should be a red flag.  And I'm not necessarily saying that I need to quit all, or even a certain percentage of my after-work commitments.  A friend gave me a gift this year that said "get shit done" and if that isn't a motto I actively chose for myself, my personality definitely chose it for me.  People who get shit done are often tapped to fill roles of responsibility, and the flattery that goes along with people believing in you makes it hard to say no.  But being in a position of ownership or administration also adds a certain degree of anxiety that you're doing it wrong and you're messing it up for all the other people who have a stake in whatever you're doing.  What I've learned from the feeling of relief I had back in March juxtaposed with the feeling of anxiety I'm rocking now is that maybe the good feeling of people believing in you isn't always worth the anxiety of being accountable to those people.  I haven't figured this out yet, but it's something I can't sweep under a rug when everything's back in full swing, either.

So that's where I'm at right now.  I'm sure I will always struggle with how I move around in the world, but the world keeps moving and so must I.

A Life Less Automaton

I used to take a picture of my outfit every morning and post it to Instagram.

I'm not an influencer and it's definitely not one of my aspirations.  I like the likes.  Feedback is nice.  But I was using Instagram for the same reasons that Insta's owners want us to use it.  I was gathering data.  I was using the likes to determine what items were not going to make the cut during my quarterly closet purge.  I can't be bothered anymore.  I still get dressed every day in real clothes, but only my husband ever sees them so now the only thing that makes the cut is what makes me feel uncomfortable when I'm sitting at my desk for hours on end.

I used to set an intention for the day. 

I would use oracle cards and an astrology app.  I would post that on Instagram, too.  Not because I'm looking to be a spiritual leader to the masses.  I would put it there because it's a less wasteful thing to do than write it down in a notebook.  But my intention for every day is the same now: Don't let every day be the same.

When this started, I admit that I was reveling in my ability to go through the motions of every day without interruption.  I am a person who thrives on ritual.  But without something out of the ordinary to look forward to, the ritual becomes automation.  I'm not reveling anymore.  Mostly I'm just weary and I don't see the point of maintaining my rituals and routines if there's nothing to break them up.

I recognize that this line of argument is veering into "open things up so I can get a haircut" territory.  That's not where I'm going with this.  Though I would love to spend an afternoon having the hair ripped from my legs so I look less like a sasquatch, I know that I can't.  I understand the value of having my movements restricted - or of restricting my movements if nobody else will, for that matter (looking at you, economy-minded politicians) - for the greater good.  What I am learning is that I need to become more ingenious about how I shake up my routine so I don't become a robot.

How I'm Dealing

Most of my recent posts have been angry or anxious, and I'm still feeling that.  But it's the weekend, so that feeling isn't quite so fresh...though Monday's coming ;)

Because my arm's reach work fills me with anxiety, here's how I'm spending my precious free time to let all that go.

1. To-Do Lists - I've been really good at these since time immemorial.  I come up with things to do, many of which are recurring, and I do them.  Checking things off lists is extremely satisfying to me, and since I made the list, there aren't too many completely odious tasks on it. 

2. Baths - I decluttered the bathroom a few weeks ago.  Though it did make me anxious to pitch all the various expired creams and analgesics I found in my cupboard (not to mention my husband - he's still going on about how I tossed his 10-year-old polysporin), I also located a number of smelly bath soaks and salts.  I'm not good at just sitting, even though doing nothing is probably what I need right now, so I've been playing a 20-minute guided meditation while I'm in there.  It gives me something to focus on while I'm soaking up all the aromatherapy. 

3. Bike rides - or walks.  But mostly bike rides because I find it's easier to socially distance when I'm on the road with the cars instead of on the sidewalk with people who don't seem to understand what's happening in the world.  (Also, not getting myself needlessly worked up about those people because I can't control them...that's another way I'm trying to deal).  Last year I pledged to ride 100 km in one month, which I did fairly handily.  This year, I'm trying to double my previous month's mileage.  Last month, I rode about 88 km, so this month my goal is 177 km.  See?  Checking things off lists is extremely satisfying.  The weather lately has not been particularly cooperative about the bike rides lately (slash I'm a tiny baby who does not like to be wet or cold), so...

4. Yin yoga - I don't have a lot of space for an at-home workout and my house is a creaky 90-year-old factory bungalow.  Though I have access through my gym to all kinds of on-demand workouts, if I were to jump-squat in my front room, I'm fairly certain things would fall off the shelves in the furnace room at the back of the house.  I'm also finding that since I'm not weight training and roller skating regularly (I am mainly sitting in my office chair wondering if I've done enough to keep my clients alive this week), I'm experiencing a lot effed up muscle cramps/pain.  Enter yin yoga - gravity-aided stretching poses held for 3-5 minutes and nary a downward dog to be found.  It is full of meditative bullshit, but it helps me sleep, so whatever about that.

5. Newsletters - I had already subscribed to two newsletters before all of this started.  I read The Good Trade daily and Girls' Night In weekly.  I read a few more now.  Probably more than I can realistically consume in the time I have given, but there's always something inspiring or informative to read to reassure me (Girls' Night In), distract me (Big Spaceship Internet Brunch, Edith Zimmerman's Drawing Links), or let me know what's going on with the markets and politics south of the border/make me feel smug about being Canadian (Morning Brew). 

5. Musical challenges - I've been working my way through sight-reading Handel's Messiah.  I'm not good at it, but it's asking me to do things with my eyes and hands and brain that they haven't been asked to do in quite some time.  So that's good.  I'm also using an app to teach myself to play the guitar.  I can play a mean E minor.  And a fairly passable A major.  Moving back and forth between the two is still very difficult.  But focusing on challenging things that really don't matter very much since I'm not likely to be performing either Handel's Messiah or anything on the guitar for any sort of public anytime soon, it's good because the stakes are low.  Which is different from the real challenges I'm facing at work.

6. Cooking - This has become something of an adventure because I make the grocery list but I do not get the groceries.  I have a plan for weekend food, but sometimes what's available at the grocery store does not cooperate.  Sometimes, I suggest to my husband that a fresh coconut will be a fine alternative to shredded coconut so he doesn't have to go to another store to find it.  Sometimes, I find myself hammering open a coconut in my backyard at 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday, hoping I'm not bothering my neighbours.  I made an elderflower jelly mold yesterday.  And used a melon baller to scoop out a cooked beet.  Who am I?

Anyway - just in case you were thinking that I've been spending my isolation days curled up in the fetal position breathing into a paper bag.  I'm only doing that 5 days a week, and only metaphorically, anyway.  The rest of my life is filled with self-made challenges to keep my mind off the work day paper bag.  I hope you're dealing too, in whatever way you deal best.

Anxiety from the Comfort of Home

I'm going to keep this one short because I just haven't got it today. 

Way back, five weeks ago, I remember admitting that I was actually kind of looking forward to some government-mandated do-nothing time.  I thought I might finally have a minute to breathe.  I am still employed, and I am childless, so an extended WFH should be a breeze, no?

Guys.  I am not relaxed right now.

I have been pulling extra long days to get all my work done and I feel like my husband, who is home but not working, feels neglected and wishes that I wasn't spending so much time on work. He will correct me, and I appreciate that.
I have lost 20+ people I provide care to in the last month and though I know there was no way to prepare for this whole thing, I feel like it's partly because I wasn't prepared.
I have friends and family who want to have zoom calls with me and I really miss their faces but I have had literally one or more video conference calls (three today) or meetings every day to learn something new or to fix something I can't fix in person and I have nothing left for those people at the end of the day. 

Last week I got a note from my corporate contact letting me know my work supporting front-line workers was noticed and appreciated, and I honestly couldn't think what I had done for her to give me that feedback.  It was nice, but I also feel a little like I'm going to be found out somehow.

Anyway, that's how I feel.  Like an impostor. Anxious.  Not rested.  I'm sure I'm not alone.

Stages in the Storm

The last time I wrote something here I wasn't in a good place. 

COVID-19 had taken hold in two of the long-term care homes I service, and as the Ontario Premier described, it spread like wildfire.  I was working a lot - to the point of overwork.  And even though I was feeling overworked, I had an overwhelming feeling of guilt because I still felt like I wasn't doing enough because at least my overwork was happening from the comfort and safety of home.

Early on in the week, I read this article. It's a comforting read.  I recommend it.

I've been having weekly meetings with my contract companies about what we know about how to provide nutrition care to people affected by COVID-19, how our practice is changing and how to manage new directives coming from the Ministry of Health in the wake of a worldwide emergency.

I know, and have always known, this about myself: I like a plan.  

My family would take a trip to visit our East Coast relatives every summer.  My mother would sometimes give me the provincial tourism book so I could daydream about what adventures we might have on our trip.  The end result would typically be that I had itinerized our entire trip with tourist traps, cultural festivals and local oddities.  My parents always had a much more low-key idea about how our trip would go.  There would generally be a meltdown at some point.

I've seen this meme floating around the internet lately that says "We're all in the same boat.  We're not all in the same storm."  

Years of disappointment about my abandoned clipboard of fun taught me to lower my expectations about how much I can fit into a day or a week.  Despite that, my need for a plan...any plan...has not wavered.  I do not like changing the plan.  Our collective response to our planetary crisis has required by-the-minute modifications to how we, as a population, as a community, and as a profession, manage our lives.  At the same time, the people collaborating on those plans are being pulled in so many different directions.  Engaging people who are busier than they ever signed up to be in making new plans is really difficult.  That is my storm.  Ever-evolving plans make me incredibly anxious. Creating contingencies with missing information or without input from key players puts me in a state of panic. Like I have to put a puzzle together to save my life or someone else's, but I know from the beginning that there are pieces missing.

After a videoconference meeting this week, I finally sent an email to one of my contract administrators expressing my anxiety.  I was nervous.  I don't like exposing myself and my vulnerabilities like that.  (I can broadcast them on the internet, but not in an email to one person...lol...).  The act of writing what's bothering me and sending it to someone was actually incredibly freeing. It helped that she was understanding of my opinion and was reassuring.  We need more of that these days.  But in that moment I had achieved acceptance of the grief I was feeling.  And that was good.

I've been here before.  Grieving.  I know it's not a set of stairs I can run up, Rocky-style, and be done with it.  But I know I can remember those moments of acceptance and know that over time (a long time, it seems) there will be more moments of acceptance than anger or anxiety or sadness.  I'm trying to look forward to that new normal.

A Big Steaming Pile...

This week has not been my best.

Isolation is starting to wear me down.  The last time I was outside was Monday and tomorrow's not really looking good for fresh air either.

Somehow, my right hip stopped working and now it's in constant pain.  Slept funny, maybe.  Who knows anymore.

Two of my three homes have positive COVID-19 cases and though I'm not on the front-lines there's lots of work to be done.  The paradox of this whole situation is that even though I can literally see the places I relax ALL DAY, I'm working much more than normal and can't actually spend the time relaxing.  I've been pulling extra long days and as things get hairy onsite, I'll be doing more to take as much load off my colleagues on the floor as I can.  They're...appreciative...I think.  To be honest, when I call the evening RN with my orders, the reception I get is not exactly warm.  I try to remember that what I'm doing right now seems pretty cushy in comparison to what they're doing and keep the smile plastered to my face, but the smile's starting to crack at the corners.

Everyone I know is struggling and my default response is to try and find a solution, but I'm tired and there are no solutions except to dig in and bear it.  This too shall pass.

But when?

Seriously, when?

Isolation Station

The journey continues.

This week, the Ministry of Health and the College of Dietitians threw more policy down the pipe and now I'm working from home unless something specific calls me into the LTC homes where I work.  The idea is to reduce transmission of the virus from home to home, and since I work in three, this makes sense.  It does bring up a bunch of ethical considerations regarding what constitutes essential on-site nutrition care and I'm definitely struggling with that.  I do feel better knowing I'm not going in and using up valuable PPE so the nursing staff can give the best care, but I'm also concerned that my residents are not getting the best care from me right now.

That's a whole ball of wax.  I've had at least 2 video conference calls per week teasing out what it means and I don't want to spend more time on it here, but it's on my mind, so I mention it.

In the meantime, I have been trying to maintain some level of not-going-crazy in the 1000 sq. feet that I share with my husband.  Here's how:

1. I get dressed for work every day.  Even though I'm not going anywhere.  I change into lounge clothes when I'm done. It helps me to distinguish between work time and home time.  Also, it means that if I do have to go in, I'm already dressed. 

2. Staying in contact.  I've been keeping in touch with friends and family a little more than I had been pre-COVID-19.  I'm happy to know they're safe and we commiserate about what's hard about this and what we're hopeful about.  It's nice and I should have been doing more of it.

3. Staying active.  Right now I'm finding that the weather is beautiful all morning and garbage at right around the time I'm clocking off, and this one would be easier if I could get on my bike and ride without getting pneumonia...but I'm trying to get moving regularly.  My gym is closed, but my trainer sent me at-home workouts which I've been doing.  I'm still finding that my joints are starting to feel sore, probably from underuse, and I need to focus more on this.

4. Deleting Facebook from my phone.  I had been toying with dropping FB from my life altogether, but too many groups I'm part of use FB to communicate, including my family.  I disabled the app on my phone, which means I can still use messenger to communicate with people, but I'm not finding myself scrolling through the multiple graphs showing the totally disheartening case-doubling rates of my province, my country and our neighbour to the south, and I'm not doing deep-dives in my friends' comments and getting into flame wars with people I don't really know about whatever it is I disagree with.  I log on once or twice throughout the day from my laptop or desktop, but that's it and I feel better about it.

5. Online scrabble.  My family and I have been playing Lexulous.  This has been good because I have to focus on something very concrete - making the letters I have fit into the letters that are on the board.  I'm historically terrible at this game even though I have a fairly extensive vocabulary.  I remember a friend inviting me over to play scrabble and pulling out all his best stops because he thought I'd be really good.  He skunked me.  Anyway....it's also been good because I'm actually better at it than I remember (or my opponents are taking it easy on me...either way...), and that makes me feel good about something.

Still and all, I'm walking a fine line with my mental health.  I'm actually finding weekends harder because there's less structure to the day and my mind wanders to places it maybe shouldn't go right now.  I'm watching a lot more TV than I normally would and I'm not so proud of that.  Most of what I'm reading is suggesting we've got another month or more of this, so digging in to what's working and getting rid f what's not is going to be extremely important. 

I hope everyone's coping.  I would be really interested to hear what's working for you.

The One with COVID-19

These are strange times, friends.

And I'm in a strange spot.  I'm a healthcare worker, but not a frontline healthcare worker.  I have contact with a vulnerable population, but not *intimate* contact.  One of my employers has asked me to work remotely.  The other two have decided that I'm an essential service.  I'm confused about what that means.

Every once in a while I get that strange feeling that what's happening around me is happening, on a greater or smaller scale, to every single other person around the world and then I feel very small.  Because nothing that's happening to me is special, except everything that's happening to everyone right now is special.

I don't have any cool advice on how to deal.  Part of me was feeling a little overwhelmed with life and is a teensy bit relieved to have government-mandated stop-everything-you're-doing-and-stay-the-fuck-home time.  I recognize that feeling has a lot to do with the level of privilege I enjoy.  I own a functioning bicycle and have access to all kinds of streaming workouts.  I have a fairly large stockpile of food in my cupboards and freezer, although some of it is a little...unconventional (anybody need a box of cocoa nibs?  I have three.  Will trade for dry pasta or eggs).  My yarn and fabric stashes have been calling my name for *years*.  The internet/cellphone waves keep me in touch with my loved ones far and wide.  And let's not forget the famed movie list.  I'm crossing things off of that baby like crazy.

The takehome here is that I'm probably going to be fine. But I have worries.  I have people who are maybe not going to be fine.  The fact that the various curves I keep refreshing on various public health-ish websites could go either way still makes me worried.  I'm terrified that someone's going to sneeze on my coat at the grocery store and I'm going to be partially responsible for flattening a whole floor of octagenarians because my service was deemed essential.  Everything is cancelled or closed "until further notice" and the lack of expiry date on this thing makes me hyperventilate a little.

I still don't have any cool advice on how to deal.  Everything is normal and abnormal at the same time.  Shit's weird.  Everybody shits.

New List

Ugh...I keep trying to write something and I'm not getting past the first few sentences.

I've been trying to read more lately.  More books, first and foremost, but also articles and commentaries on current events.  One of my aborted attempts at this post was inspired by an article about African American installation artist Kara Walker. 

More recently, I read an article about how the internet has become a giant library of top 10 listicles.  It's not too far from the truth, and as a lifelong list-maker myself, it hit home for me. The piece made the argument that the ever-expanding archive of ranked lists is really part of the capitalist machine to steer our collective consumption.  When I see a top 10 list, my gut reaction is to add the things on that list into one of my own lists.  I have a list of podcasts I want to listen to, a list of books I want to read, a list of movies I want to see, a list of recipes I want to make, a list of crafts I want to craft...the list goes on.  The part of me that wants to eat the rich and smash the patriarchy tells myself that I will only buy these things when I actually need a new one, or when someone asks me what I would like as a gift, or I will only borrow it from the library (I guess that one only works for books...)...

I could go on to defend myself with the notion that most of the lists I'm culling for my own list-fodder are written by people or groups that ascribe mainly to my own particular ideals, the deeper part of me knows that it's still all just part of the WANT machine that's been driving us more and more lately.  A large part of me knows I can never possibly listen to all the podcasts, read all the books, watch all the movies, bake all the cakes and knit all the hats because I simply don't have the time or money to do that and still go to work and exercise and eat right and sleep a full 8 hours every night.  That part of me is dying of FOMO every second.

A gentleman I know who used to work in the publishing industry told me that the reason for all the lists on the internet and all the franchise reboots in the movies and all the sampling and covering in music is that the planet earth is DESPERATE for content.  Always be (making) CONTENT so we can ALWAYS BE CONSUMING.

How can this possibly be?  I feel like I'm *figuratively* drowning in CONTENT. I can't even keep up with the articles I'm trying to read about how the content that's out there isn't even very good.  This entry I'm writing isn't very good, but that's because I'm trying to force myself to create content.

...

I know this is where I usually have a tidy little resolution where I find a way to resolve things for myself.  But the truth is, I really don't know how to stop making lists.  And the corollary to that is that I also want to remove things from the list...Hmmm...

New list:
1. Eat the rich.
2. Smash the patriarchy.

...

There's the denouement I was looking for.

New Orleans, New Outlook

My husband and I went on our extremely belated honeymoon in January.  We went to New Orleans, which had been something we had discussed pretty soon after it became clear that our relationship was going to last the long haul.  It's good that we had determined that already because the drive there was a REALLY LONG HAUL.

We chose New Orleans mainly for the music and food, and to a lesser extent its open container laws.

We enjoyed all of those things to the fullest extent possible given our time and budget, but what I came away with was a sort of confused sense of identity.  Before we arrived, I had heard or read that New Orleans is the black sheep city of America.  It really did seem to be a place where weirdos of all stripes congregated to do their thing.  Our Garden District tour guide didn't JUST tell us about which houses had which famous people living in them, but would also get SUPER excited about the Italianate ironwork on the galleries.  Both of our French Quarter tour guides billed themselves, first and foremost, as paranormal investigators, which I thought was just a job for people on TV.  Vampires roamed the streets at night and drag queens roamed them by day.  Guys who looked down on their luck would sit on a curb with a cell phone, a microphone and a tiny speaker and sing their hearts out for change.  Just down the street, a multi-piece brass ensemble would be doing their best to drown him out.  Psychics and mediums were set up everywhere waiting for someone to sit in the lawn chair across from them. 

Strange though it may seem, I really felt that I was with my people.

I wrestle with that statement because I'm a pretty straight-laced person.  My friends and family have always joked that trips with me involve the clipboard of fun because I've planned every detail to the last.  I once suggested to a boyfriend that I might shave one side of my head and do that rockabilly undercut thing.  He laughed and said I would be way too self-conscious about it to pull it off.  I don't wear a lot of makeup, even for special occasions.  I don't drink too much.  I make lists.  For everything.

I like a nice cardigan.

Maybe I just appreciated that so many people could let their inner weirdo out and feel ok about it. 

I also, perhaps surprisingly, consult oracle cards every morning to help set an intention for the day.  I'm not trying to see the future or call on a deceased loved one - I'm just trying to centre in on how I should approach the day.  The cards keep suggesting changes coming and I'm not sure how to fit that into my daily intention box.

I'm hopeful about a few things, but if all the cards portend is that this is finally the time that I take all of my mundanities and my idiosyncrasies and realize that I can be boring and weird at the same time, then that's fine with me.

Because I do believe that I can get guidance from the ether through a set of cards I bought at Chapters.

But I also REALLY like a nice cardigan.