This week has been hard. Not sleeping well, for one thing, which always makes my anxiety worse. A dearth of good news in the news, for another. I see no light at the end of this tunnel—on the contrary, I see the tunnel being extended as states open too soon and people ignore social distancing because they are tired of it. Now instead of just fighting the virus, we are fighting each other, and it makes me sick inside.
I get that people are impatient for this to end. I am, too. I’ve had enough of never being alone, never being off the clock. Enough of the anxiety that sits on my chest all day every day. Of the tears I can’t even shed because I am never alone to do so. Of not writing. Of eating too much. Of this dystopian Groundhog Day.
I’m ready to be done with this, but I can’t be done with this because it’s not over yet. And the uncertainty of when it will be over is part of the problem. I talked about anticipatory anxiety early on, and it’s still there. I know this will all end one day, but the when and how is unknown, and that weighs heavily on me. I’m good in an immediate emergency, but this extended emergency is grinding me down.
I don’t really know how to shake out of this, because there is no end in sight. So I will just have to endure. Stay as isolated as possible, make up with my daughter from the fight we had last night, and try to get more sleep. All I can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other, because there is no way out but through.
Stay strong, stay home, stay healthy.
A Surprise for Mother’s Day – Lockdown Day 61
With the COVID-19 lockdown continuing, we knew this Mother’s Day was going to be different. No going to my mom’s house, nor any chance of seeing my mother-in-law. We’d be at home, like every other day for the past 2 months.
My daughter woke me up too early to inform me that I would need to wash her blanket because she had gotten blood on it (nosebleed). Apparently that news could not wait until I woke up on my own. But it turned out to be a good thing.
My husband couldn’t fall back to sleep after she came in, so he got up. As he looked out the back window, he told me that there was a doe and fawn in our backyard! So we ran downstairs to tell my daughter and we peered out the blinds at the Mama Deer. The fawn had obviously been born not long before, as it was just trying out its legs, unsteady and straddled. And then my daughter said, “I think there’s a second one!” Sure enough, Mama gave birth to a second fawn!
We watched the second one progress from still in its sac to wiggling over to Mama for milk, and eventually standing up (and falling down) to join its sibling. The family stayed in the yard all day. How incredible to watch the fawns go from not able to stand to just about running by the end of the day! The first fawn was more adventurous than the other, wandering much farther from Mama. My daughter declared that the first fawn was a girl and the second a boy, although of course we have no way of knowing.
As dusk fell, Mama wandered around the yard. She stopped at our sliding glass door and peered in at us. We stared back for a very long moment, not moving, not wanting to frighten her. Then she started chewing the grass in her mouth again and wandered off. When I looked out later, the babies were still there, but Mama had gone, perhaps in search of water. When we woke up in the morning, all three had gone.
Certainly not a Mother’s Day gift I expected, but it was an amazing experience—and a welcome break in the quarantine routine.