What are we waiting for?

Thursday morning, 4:00 am.

My title.  It’s an interesting question, right? 

Are we using this time as a stalemate?  A standstill?  A purgatory of productivity? 

Or an opportunity for growth.  And change.  Creation. 

If you are like me, you are questioning what the hell really matters right now.  Where your energy and time should be spent.  What your focus should be.  What meals can be made with the remnants of the fridge and pantry.  If your boredom can be contained within your own household or if going to HEB is a good thing.  

There are days of creativity and contentment, and there are days of struggle and boredom.  Today is the latter.  And if I really pay attention, sometimes it even changes hourly.  I mean, I can wake up feeling pretty damn good and then be wracked by anxiety by 10 am.  Not just feeling unsettled, but periods where I need to take my handy anxiety medication that I came home from rehab with.  I think I took it only a handful of times in the first year, but in the last month, maybe seven or eight times.  Yeah, not my favorite, because it also makes me feel tired, which makes me even less productive. But at least my brain and body stop the convulsions that no one can even see.

I think it would be really revealing for everyone to post Then and Now pictures on Facebook.  “Then” might be…smiling, clothed in conservative work attire, clean shaven, perhaps fully make-upped face, hair nicely done, after use of 3-4 products to keep it in place for the day.  “Now” where we have no makeup, five extra pounds, a beard or unibrow, stretchy clothing on and a facial expression that says…”meh.” 

There are moments of anticipation.  Waiting for delivery of the take-out that sounded exciting 45 minutes ago.  Opening Facebook, hoping to laugh out loud or see a surprising high school picture of someone we know, perusing our streaming apps and finding something new and undiscovered to watch.  Logging into our bank accounts to see if there’s a stimulus check deposit.

Um, yeah.  That’s what I’m waiting for.  STIMULUS.  And can I have that in multitude?  Stimuli, please.

I seem to be building two separate columns:  things I never thought I would do AND things I do way too much of.  Funny, huh?

Things I never thought I would do…

Dye my hair blue, create a non-profit for musical outreach, renovate a camping trailer, write something that could seriously anger my ex, shave my head, wear no makeup for weeks in a row, not give a shit about my weight, come to value paper products, notice that everyone now cares about music, NOT drink- when of any moment in my lifetime…now seems appropriate.

Things I’ve done way too much of…

Watch TV, eat indulgent meals, work from my couch instead of my office space, notice everyone cares about alcohol, think about altering my mind, desire PASSION, become pissed off at people not wearing masks, cry at music unexpectedly, yearn to go driving in my car, be scared to eat take-out. 

A surprising twist…the fact that THIS girl knows how to isolate.  While I know that I need to be around people, my inner introvert rejoiced when there was even a SOCIETAL expectation to stay home.  Ha!  That isn’t all too difficult for me.  I just got confirmation that what I already do, is recommended. 

I already knew that isolation is safe, until there’s too much of it.  I spent most of the first months in recovery, home alone with the kids and Mike.  My new job allowed me to work from home, I didn’t have to wear professional attire, I didn’t socialize with current work colleagues in person much, I didn’t like AA, and I let some friendships go.  Well, I had already let many of them go during divorce and addiction, but when I left teaching, I didn’t even reconnect with many people that I used to see daily.  Perhaps, they were only relationships built on our common occupations, and perhaps because no one wants to associate with me. 

Some are still Facebook friends.  Colleagues from the school.  But only a couple of adults from my school have remained friends…or what I consider a friend.  And it wasn’t necessarily who I expected. Or rather, I thought more of the friendships would continue.

Maybe there was only a few all along.  I don’t know.  You know, as adults, friendships often center around work or children, so when those things change, the relationship changes as well.  And if you are like me, and you throw admitting addiction into the mix, it’s tough on everyone involved.  I think my openness may make other people uncomfortable, and that sucks, because that openness is now a crucial part of my personality.  So, I’m often left with a lot of questions to answer, and I must fill in the blanks myself.  Those friendships ended because…they were never reciprocal friendships to begin with, they think less of me now, or my openness makes them uncomfortable.  And I’ll NEVER know which one applies. 

I keep getting surprised when someone reveals to me that they read my writing.  I mean, most of the time, they never let anyone know, but I just kept on writing, didn’t I?  Ha!  I didn’t get what I wanted, but OH WELL, I just kept on creating, so I suppose there was a payoff of some kind, even if it was minute.  Writing is perhaps the ONLY thing that I’ve ever continued, even though it continued to be painful.  I guess even negative feelings were better than no feelings. 

It was…stimulating.  Is that akin to when children are happy with whatever attention they receive, even if it’s negative?  Well, yeah…maybe if they are bored.

So, leaving teaching and going away to rehab, was self-defining and relationship-defining.  My own brother didn’t ever reach out when I was there, but I didn’t either.  And I’m fairly certain that he doesn’t read my writing.  I could be offended by that, or I could also just accept that our relationship isn’t what I wish it was, and that I have 50% of that responsibility.  As adults, we’ve both obviously been content to let my mother fill us in on what’s happening in the other person’s life…as if that’s anything other than giving us a timeline of sorts.  Like watching a movie with fast-forward pressed down on the remote, we only get the gist of the person, nothing with sound or feeling.

What am I waiting for?  Not entirely sure…I guess some kind of stimulus.  And moments like this kind of isolation make us take stock of our most treasured relationships and recognize where they stand.

When I started writing, it was because after months of no alcohol or music as my focus, I simply had to create.  Creativity was born of angst and isolation.  I did what I had never done before, and it wasn’t enough to do it for myself.  I used it to scream from behind bars, both hands fisted around the metal harshness of solitude.  I had sung every day in rehab, but I stopped singing once I was home.  I settled into recovery, but still isolated in pain in some ways, and the stimulus was deciding that enough was enough.  It was up to ME to change what I could.

So, yeah, it’s interesting to watch other people do a lot of the existential thinking that I started over a year ago.  To focus on creating.  To realize what relationships matter.  To reduce life to focusing on the present hour.  To notice what simple things are productive and what many things are destructive.  And how often, we are waiting on someone else or some outside thing to change how we feel.

It’s impossible to enter recovery without a massive sense of personal responsibility.  It starts with humility, but for me, it turned into responsibility for action.  You see, first, you realize that you are NOT better than others.  And that your own personal actions brought you to the present, and if that’s painful, then that’s a little humiliating.  All of this is healthy, and then you realize that the same sense of responsibility, leads you to the power to change what you don’t like, or what is destructive behavior.  It’s really the only way that you can transform shame.  So, when I recognized which relationships were healthy and which were NOT, I saw that when I didn’t actively try to make a change…it’s all too easy to sit in the waiting too long or to decide that you won’t move unless someone invites you.  A standoff.  An impasse.  A stubborn decision that we deserve more than what we are given. 

And Friday morning, 5:00 am.

Everything in the above paragraphs…I wrote yesterday morning.  I’m sitting here at 5 am after a restless night of pseudo-slumber, assessing my brain from 24 hours ago…and everything has changed.  I even talked to my brother yesterday evening.  I didn’t actually make that call; circumstances decided that for me.

To be honest, I had already decided after the writing that I would call him soon.  Verbalizing my shame in not connecting with him often, had already begun the process of change, right?  When I write about something, I also make myself accountable.  Or that’s how I see it, anyway. 

We deeply love one another.  There is no doubt in that, but as adults, if not in PERSON, we very rarely call one another.  The only times this has occurred is when my parents’ health was in question, like when my mom had a stroke or the few times when there were visits to the ER.  We just tend to wait to be in person, in order to connect, but sometimes, that’s months and months.

I’m struck with the words that I wrote just a day ago…”What are we waiting for?” 

And the expression of needing stimuli in order to get us to RISE UP, off of our mental couches.

How could I have known the uncertainty of this morning?  And how could I have known Jason would call?

I didn’t.  But he did. 

I first got a call from my sister-in-law around 5 pm.  That’s a rare occurrence as well, even though we were close friends in college, and I introduced them to one another back in 1997.  They fell fast in love and were married within a year.  Jason and I have always liked the same kinds of people, and I knew they would be wonderful partners. 

They are.

She asked me if I had spoken to my mother or father throughout the day, and even though I usually talk to my mom daily, I had to answer no.  My father had been experiencing a fairly bad day with his short-term memory, and he had told them that he had spoken with me, but that was not the case.

Mom was in a waiting room in the ER, and Jason was driving to the hospital to escort my father home, because absolutely no one could even enter the hospital building doors except for my mother.  They had been worried that he wouldn’t be able to find his way home alone, so Jason went, so that my dad could just follow his car home.  Jason and Dad were sitting on the porch of my parents’ home at that moment, awaiting any word from my mother or from doctors. 

Here’s the gist:  she woke up with fever yesterday, tremendous aches and body pains and even a massively swollen knee.  Well, she’s had two knee replacements and joint pain is not a new thing for her, due to her rheumatoid arthritis.  But nausea, fever, and full body aches seemed unrelated to her knee that would barely allow her to walk.  Evidently, she even needed aid from my father to get back and forth to the bathroom yesterday.  Anyway, after a call with her doctor, he recommended that she go to the ER.  That’s where she is now.  She’s been admitted, they’ve done both a Covid test and basic blood work to see if she has some sort of infection.  My parents have been extremely careful and not had any risky contact with others, for weeks and weeks. And we’re all just waiting…

So, I’d say I got the stimulus I was referring to, although NOT what I was expecting or what I would have chosen.  I am powerless over much of what’s happening right now, and I may have some tough decisions to make in the near future.

For the next 24-48 hours, we will be awaiting results that could determine her treatment and also what both Jason and I need to proactively take part in…caring for our own children, working from home, taking care of and monitoring my father in Houston, who has already been struggling with Alzheimer’s…and yesterday, definitely seemed to be stressed and anxious, which made him forget crucial details and repeat himself often.  He can’t be alone for long.  That’s obvious, so it’s likely that Jason or I will go and stay with him, if Mom is going to be in the hospital for more than 48 hours. 

SO

All of those gray areas of decision-making regarding this virus and taking necessary precautions, just hit home for our family.  Hit the fucking nail on the head of personal decision-making that might be questionable. 

Yeah, it’s all OPTIONAL until it suddenly comes to your house, uninvited.  Right now, I must consider each and every time I have left the house in the last two weeks, and consider if my children come back to our house tomorrow…which was the plan, because Mike and I have been self-quarantining for the recommended 14 days after he returned from Florida.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to see my kids, because I may need to go to Houston, never having SEEN my children, since they have not been following the same quarantining as myself, for the past two weeks. So, that optional decision to allow my daughter to work outside of the home during this crisis, has now affected the present.  Just like my decision to stay quarantined with Mike for 14 days, gives me comfort in now being able to be around my father if need be.  Anytime we expand our exposure from the PAST few weeks, we pass on that exposure to others…and now I must consider my aging father.

Each of the optional precautions matter.  Each of the RECOMMENDATIONS are for your own personal safety and the SAFETY OF OTHERS.  Not just now, but in two weeks’ time, which is how long this virus can remain symptom free.  Do not wait for this kind of stimulus.  Please.  Just remain at home and make the frustrating and seemingly insignificant choices that may make an important difference in the future.  Stop saying it doesn’t apply to you.

I have always had a healthy respect for this virus and conservative caution.  And I have a healthy respect for people who are much smarter than myself, because I trust that they have our best interest in mind. 

And mostly, I have a healthy respect for fear.  It will be important that I remain conscious of this unwelcomed stimulus today.  I didn’t go looking for this drama, but no one ever does.  Be conservative and be wise.  The worst may not be over, because fear is still around every corner and will remain there hidden for quite some time.  Stay home and safe and consider the more difficult decisions of utmost importance.  They may matter to you and those you love in the coming weeks.

What are we waiting for?  Moments when we know what matters in this world.  Moments when I know that the sound of my brother’s voice is so needed in my life, and that it took my mom’s admission to the hospital for us to finally connect.  Moments when I know that I made the right decision two weeks ago to keep my family safe.

So, we will wait today.  We may still be waiting tomorrow. 

I may wait on answers, but I will not waste this opportunity to learn from what each of these moments and decisions are teaching me.  If you aren’t paying attention, the jokes on you.  We may be bored at home, but that can change in an instant.  My own personal boredom and the boredom of my children is NOT more important than the lives of those that I love.

THIS.

Is not what I was waiting for, but I will embrace these hard decisions with grace and respect for fear, this virus, and life itself.  And I will take notice of what I’m being taught by each stimulus that rolls my way today.  Don’t just wait.  Create what you need in your life and what others around you need. Now.  And in the future. 

I don’t reside on my mental couch this morning.

My, how things change.