7 years ago today, my mom died of pneumonia that she came down with while on chemo for esophageal cancer.  She was diagnosed in December with this 4th round of cancer.  Every time before, she had mouth cancer, and she beat it, so I wasn’t even incredibly worried.  It was unfathomable to me that she would die.

It was the first time she’d been prescribed chemo.  I took her some Ensure on April 15th (easier for me to get from Presby downtown since I worked nearby) and I snapped a photo of her and Dad because they looked really cute and happy as I left their house.  It was the last time I saw Mom alive and well.  It was the last time I saw Dad really happy.

Mom’s death was the first significant loss of my life, and it spawned other significant events, most importantly that when Dad was diagnosed with glioblastoma almost exactly a year later, he decided after one round of treatment that he was ready to move on and join Mom (which to me also sounded like, leave Jenny and me behind).  Dad was diagnosed in April 2014 and died in January 2015.

Even before Dad died, he had decided to sell the house where he and Mom are pictured, which they had bought in 1977, where Jenny and I grew up.  His cancer surgery and treatments had caused some impairments, and so he sold his truck that he was no longer allowed to drive and moved in with Jenny.  The sale was finalized in February after his death.  Losing  both parents and our childhood home was a lot.  I still can’t go back to my old house, to that neighborhood, without a lot of pain.  I knew those losses would come . . . even as Jenny and I discussed keeping the house to rent it, we knew were just trying to hold on to the past, to our memories, to our treasures.  What made that place magical was the people who inhabited it and the memories we created there.  It was time to let it go and hope someone else would find the same magic in it we had known.  Knowledge that it was purchased to be a rental property and a few drive-bys to see how poorly the landscaping has been kept tell me that dream hasn’t come true (yet), but – it does still say “LYNN” on the mailbox, and that makes Jenny and me and the neighbors who also miss the days before we sold it smile.

Mom’s death also opened our eyes to how we deal with stressors and loss.  Jenny’s anxiety/panic returned with a vengeance; Dad was diagnosed with depression and started taking medicine for it (which I realized he should have been doing for…ever); and I discovered somewhere between the death of Mom and the death of Dad that I wasn’t coping well with stress and needed to talk to a therapist and consider medicine, also.  So far, I’ve managed with writing, talking (to a therapist), and over-the-counter aids, but I see a lot of Mom in me.  She had been on anxiety medicine when she died, and we’re both sort of helper/giver/overachiever types who tend to do too much, worry too much, and wear ourselves out.

It was actually during Mom’s last cancer diagnosis that I started writing for public consumption, on a CaringBridge page my sister created to keep everyone updated about Mom’s progress.  I found that writing helped me process my own feelings, and people seemed to identify with the things I shared.

Ultimately, I changed jobs, which I think was necessary for my quality of life, but that in itself was a stressor, and a loss, and something I’m still working out.  In the month that Mom was diagnosed, I remember working from home on a very difficult case, and my hands had started peeling and cracking.  I wrapped some Scotch tape around them and kept on going.  My husband had also started working in a different city earlier that year.  For years, I wore bandages on whatever fingers were affected and could never figure out if my hand issue was stress, diet, weather, or a combination of things.  My hands have been better for several months now, maybe a year or more.  No bandages.  I do credit some “potions” I put on them, but was it also a change in lifestyle/attitude/workload?

After Mom died, I noticed that I had less tolerance for certain things at work.  I think I took off a whole week or more for her death because she was in ICU and I was with her in the hospital, hoping she would recover, but then she didn’t, and then there was the funeral, and then I went back to work on a Friday so I only had to get through one day before I got a weekend to recover some more.  (This was wise advice from Mom’s cousin who told me once you go back, you need to be ready to BE BACK FOR GOOD.  Employer will expect that.)

With Dad, I remember planning to take off on a certain day to be with him and the hospice nurses when my sister called as I drove to work one day and said he had already started dying.  Of course I argued with her because I had not planned on this and I had court . . . but I knew.  I know what she was telling me was true.  I got to work, my friend who worked with me saw me crying at my desk as I was still trying to figure things out, and he talked to our boss and they got me out of there.  Dad was present enough when I arrived to reach for me.  And, like Mom, Jenny and I were with him when he passed.

I returned from Dad’s death in time to attend a hearing regarding a problem client.  On the way to the courthouse, we passed where dad used to work and I started to cry.  In hindsight, of course this hearing could have been done without me.  I’m not even an attorney.

When Pete went to work in another city, there were a variety of reasons why I didn’t immediately follow him.  With the death of my parents, two big reasons were gone.

And my perspective changed.

Work seemed less important.  Having a job, yes.  But having a job where I cried on my way to a hearing so soon after my dad died?  No.  Having a job where, when my mom died, one of the attorneys who attended her funeral had to explain to another problem client that my boss and I were not answering his emails because we were all at my mother’s funeral?  No.  I wanted a job where I felt less abused.  I wanted a job where I didn’t feel a need to work so defensively.  I wanted a job with less demand, less criticism, more trust.  But it took me years to get there because I loved some of the people I worked with and for, clients included, so very much.  And I recognized, after so many years, how much responsibility I had, how big my shoes were to fill.

Years passed and Pete and I decided we didn’t need the big house with all of its chores since we lived in two different cities and weren’t having children.  Another perspective changed.  One more tie cut.  I don’t know that I would have made this change if my parents were still around.  I don’t think they would have been super happy with the move uptown into the tiny apartment.  Pete’s and my house in the suburbs symbolized everything I was always taught to pursue, and it also had space for grandchildren.  But Pete and I have come to different visions for our future now, including how we want to spend our leisure time, and it isn’t yard work.

Mom and Dad would be happy that eventually, Pete and I reunited in the same city and don’t go back and forth every weekend.  Losing my parents made me question how I spend my time.  I remember Mom coming to my office one night before a hockey game we were attending together.  I was trying to finish things up and she had fallen on her way in.  There was a period where she was not being very careful and she fell a few times (something else I have noticed in myself – being distracted, being overwhelmed, not paying attention).  A friend of mine went to assist her because I couldn’t – DIDN’T – stop what I was doing just yet.  I find this unbelievable today, but it’s true.  And it’s horrible.  Nothing should have been more important than my mom arriving, especially if she was injured.  And because I put so much expectation on myself, I’ll never know if the job demanded it or if I willingly gave it over.

I’m reading a book now called Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist in which she talks about a job loss: ” . . . all the while grasping back to a job and identity that was no longer mine to grasp.”

In June, it will be a year since I left that job, and I still identify so much as a member of that firm.  I have written to people and identified myself as “formerly of ____” because I’m not sure the recipient knows me otherwise – and because I still feel part of a place that I am not.  This past year has been about learning to be a new employee, relearning how to be a full-time spouse, and learning how not to get so invested in a job, because the fact is, once you leave a job, you are gone . . . severed . . . out . . . even if some people do keep in touch with you here and there.  I need to quit referencing myself in relation to that firm.  It would be like getting divorced and printing up address labels that say, “Former Mrs. Pete.”

For the last 7 years, I guess I’ve been struggling with identity in a lot of ways.  My husband and I lived apart, then back together.  We spent all of the apart time explaining, “Yes, we’re still married.  Yes, we like each other.”  And my parents died, and my identify felt enormously damaged.  We spend so much of our youth fighting for independence and freedom, but then our parents die and we struggle to know who we are if not their children.  Of course I know I still am Tom and Betty’s daughter . . . it’s just very different when they aren’t around to tell anyone.  And now, for almost a year I am back in a city where I used to live, trying to make new friendships and revitalize old ones.  I like my job and I like my boss, but he’s had so much turnover that he often refers to me in writing as “staff” and my email address doesn’t even have my name in it.  And I’m trying to not get too invested since that turns me into a person who leaves her mother bleeding on the sidewalk.  Maybe we’ll find a happy medium somewhere.

Thank you for sticking with me (so far) as I continue to try to “find myself” and “be my best self.”  I’m pretty sure it won’t happen in a video chat, so . . . maybe on the other side of this pandemic.

I’m not alone.  I’ve seen other people post about how unusually tired they are since COVID-19 began taking its toll.  We’re tired from

• worry
• the extra effort everything takes now
• boredom
• separation
• loneliness
• longing
• searching for things that apparently no longer exist at a store
• waiting in line to enter stores, then feeling rushed to get out of the store so someone else can enter
• bagging my own groceries because my reusable bags are no longer safe
• unfairness
• unpredictability
• the people who know everything but don’t agree about everything they know
• the people who know nothing and make it very clear while being near us or in charge of us
• being people who know we don’t know everything and worry that we did the wrong thing(s)
• being in charge
• not being in charge
• inconsistency
• sickness
• death
• symptoms that may or may not be COVID-19
• no symptoms that still don’t mean someone doesn’t have COVID-19
• gimmicks to keep us entertained online
• a new surge in chain letters, which goes well with that senior class photo I didn’t post despite popular demand
• hoaxes
• unemployment
• being overworked
• lack of structure
• lack of routine
• wearing masks (but I am so grateful for the people who are making them!)
• washing hands
• carpal tunnel, insomnia, and crying (contributed by Holly)
• worry

I think it all comes down to worry.  For me, this is a fight with an invisible bug.  How the f*ck am I supposed to attack something I can’t see?  I know it shows itself sometimes, as in, when people show symptoms, or in a lab.  I know it exists.  But I’m wearing masks and washing my hands and trying not to touch people and trying not to touch things and it feels like I’m dodging (rather than chasing) an invisible Pokemon.  (Maybe this isn’t a good reference since I never actually played Pokemon.)

I lack control.  I lack absolute knowledge.  I lack enough people I can touch and spend time with.

I have a job.  I’m so lucky – and yes, luck is about all it comes down to right now.  It’s not about being essential.  Hey, I’m delighted to booze it up almost every day of the week, but alcohol truly should not be essential, and there’s a problem when it is.  I was raised in AA and I can’t let go of that mindset.  (After posting this, I keep revisiting this thought and find it harsh.)  I don’t want the alcohol stores to close, though – I want all the businesses to open!  I want my theater friends and hair styling friends and personal fitness friends and all the other “nonessential” workers to get back out there and get paid . . . I want us all to go back to living outside our homes!  Haven’t we had enough time to figure out how to do it safely?  Skip a seat, skip 2, skip 3, skip 5 in the theater.  Skip tables in a restaurant.  I don’t remember ever having anyone next to me in the hair salon.  We can figure it out, people.  WE CAN.  I know so many people who don’t have jobs, and I constantly drive past businesses that are barely hanging on (https://mountainx.com/opinion/letter-a-plea-from-the-owners-of-an-asheville-restaurant/), some that have closed completely.  There is no fairness to it.  “You work.  You don’t.  You open.  You close.”  I’m sure there was thought put into it, but thoughts aren’t paying the bills and thoughts won’t fund all of the unemployment claims.

This guy has some good ideas: https://freopp.org/a-new-strategy-for-bringing-people-back-to-work-during-covid-19-a912247f1ab5.  I warn you, it’s a long read, but well thought-out.

I’m just tapped out this week.  I have little interest in anything.  There’s no end in sight and things seem somewhat hopeless.  I’M NOT SUICIDAL.  I have big plans for my funeral.  I’m not dying when only 10 or fewer people can come see me off.  If I pass during this thing, you folks wait and celebrate me when I can have a proper burial of 3-digit attendees.  1900 Mexican, Strada, and Little Caesar’s will cater.  (I haven’t asked them, but who can say no to a dead person?)

Thanks for reading my sad ramblings.  I know you all have your own feelings, your own struggles.  I know we’re all in this together.  I can’t wait until we’re out of it . . . together.

 

 

For starters, I don’t know if I have it…or have had it…or will have it.  Some people have been tested, and of the people who have had it, it’s too early to tell if they are forever immune, but that seems to be the hope, the educated guess (https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/can-you-catch-coronavirus-twice-you-ll-probably-be-immune-n1171976).

I have been of the understanding that some people could have COVID-19 and never know it.  That part of the reason this virus is so widespread is its invisibility.  People genuinely believe they are fine and unknowingly spread it to others.  This article indicates that that situation is perhaps very rare (which doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen), but pre-symptomatic transmission is more likely happening: https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-we-know-so-far-about-those-who-can-pass-corona-without-symptoms

It’s a practice of medicine, not a perfection all of the time.  This is a new, rapidly spreading virus that scientists, doctors, and the rest of us are still trying to figure out.  And as with seemingly every other important thing, there is not one consensus on how to approach it, how to stop it, how to manage it.  Do we or do we not wear masks?  Do we or do we not literally stay in our residences 24/7 until told it’s safe to come out?  Do we have enough supplies in our homes, in the hospitals, in the world, to get through this pandemic?  How bad will the financial destruction be?  How many people will die?

There have actually been arguments over whether it’s worse for people to die or for the economy to collapse.  I don’t even see these as comparable choices.  I want neither of them to happen and I recognize that both are happening and both are tremendously horrible in very different ways.  We cannot bring back the deceased.  That is for certain.  There will also be businesses that close (if they haven’t for good already), and don’t consider that as an “oh well” side effect until you’ve been the one to pour your heart and soul into something as your livelihood only to watch it disappear.  Now you have no income, and oh, you’ve had to let your staff go, too.  People have lost their jobs, either permanently or temporarily.  Every time someone I love announces a job loss, I want to send them money, and I remember that I can’t because my husband lost his job in January.  We lost our health insurance.  Who else has lost theirs now, during a pandemic?  Who’s trying to find a job in a pandemic?  Everywhere I go, I see signs of desperation in my community: stores closed, stores pleading for business, stores reminding us they are still open, stores telling us they hope to see us on the other side.  I can’t afford to over-tip every time I get takeout, and I can’t afford to eat out a lot anymore.  I can’t do enough on my own to keep these places going.  I see more panhandlers and more homeless camps than I did a month ago.

And I see these things because I leave my apartment.  I’m not sure if the “STAY HOME” mantras are meant to literally encourage everyone to stay inside their residences 24/7, but I think the answer is yes, some people really do mean that.  Some people are panicking and I can’t tell them not to because I don’t have better answers.  If you don’t leave your home and you don’t come into contact with another human, I think it is safe to say you will not catch coronavirus.  But how will you get food and supplies?  I know one household in my circle of friends who probably has enough to get through months of this thing.  They’re folks known as “preppers,” often mocked until something like this comes along and we start considering them in envy.  I can’t be much of a prepper in an apartment.  I always try to buy ahead, but I backed off a little given our current income situation.  Then a damn pandemic happened and suddenly there’s no toilet paper, no wipes, no spray, and the food starts disappearing at the grocery store, and I wish I’d hoarded and I miss my deep freezer and my sister’s farm.

But I’m glad I didn’t hoard, because that isn’t fair, and it isn’t necessary, and it isn’t my way.  We can get through this thing together, responsibly, not everyone for him/her/theirself.

I work in an office with only 6 people and we all sit in different rooms.  I am grateful to have a job and although we have all been encouraged to work from home, we still go to work because it’s more effective and I appreciate the routine and the escape and not trying to maneuver around a work-from-home podcaster.  But I observe ways in which going to work puts us, and therefore potentially others, at risk . . . just like I do when I go to the grocery store, and the gas station, and get takeout.  I can’t even grasp how grateful I feel for the job I still have, because I feel like it’s all about to come to an end.

If you’re able to stay home 24/7, I’m curious about you and if you are able to be self-sufficient without requiring someone to deliver necessities to you, therefore putting them at risk.  To be clear, I fault absolutely no one for staying home 24/7.  It is so far the only foolproof way I can see to stop the spread (but I could be wrong: see title).  I’m not sure it’s realistic, especially as the shelter-in-place orders keep being extended.  Not realistic to save lives, you ask?  Yes.  Yes, I want to save lives.  Yes, I will work from home and have already been slowly stockpiling lots of supplies and food in case we reach a point where we are mandated to literally not leave our residences for a period of time.  And yes, I find the inconsistency from leadership appalling, confusing, and disheartening.  I’m still seeing reports of flights and cruise ships in motion, and I cannot fathom why these modes of travel weren’t shut down as soon as it was realized we had a pandemic.  Talk about not making sacrifices!  Subways are still running in NYC.  I know people depend on the subway, but I’ll be amazed if people are maintaining 6′ distances while maneuvering in the tunnels or on the cars.  Shopping malls only closed late last month, and I have mixed feelings about it, because in the same moment I think, “Duh, close the non-essential malls where people bump into each other and spread this thing doing their frivolous shopping,” I realize that said closure put so many people out of work.  I’m mad at the edicts that decide who gets to keep a job and who doesn’t, and while I think it’s necessary because there was plenty of news coverage demonstrating people who just didn’t grasp the seriousness of this virus, I also observe the stores that remain open and trust their customers to social distance and I think that’s really how it should be done, until I hear of someone sneezing on a salad bar.  We’re also a lot further along now, and I think the further we go, the more seriously people take it, and also, the more frustrated people become with lack of escapes and lack of income.  I have a friend who has started receiving unemployment and I am grateful for that.  I worry that there isn’t enough to go around.  The unemployment numbers are high.

I have seen requests for testing so that if a lot of the population has already had it and is therefore immune, they could return to work and we could start getting things back on track.  I like this idea, but I don’t know if it’s feasible since I think tests are in high demand and short supply.  I also don’t like watching the world on hold with halfway rules to curb this thing.  Halfway isn’t going to cut it.  But can anyone promise us that it’s over if we stay inside for 2 weeks?  Really, really over?  I haven’t seen that promise.

Easter is next weekend.  I’ll be spending it with my spouse and cat.  I’ll be missing my sister, brother-in-law, nephews, brother-in-law’s mother, and a couple of friends I was going to see that weekend.  I feel reasonably safe leaving my residence to drive 3 hours and be at their residence.  It’s my safe residence to their safe residence, see?  But those aren’t the rules, right?  And I don’t want to be “those people” who come down with coronavirus and added to our story is, “Well, they thought they were exempt and could travel to see each other for Easter.”  But frankly, it’s a hard sell to me that I’m any less safe doing that than I am at work or the grocery store . . . both of which are permitted, both of which are essential.  Tell my heart and mental health that time with family isn’t essential.

Whatever you are doing, however you are coping with this, so long as it doesn’t mean intentionally trying to spread coronavirus or being dangerously negligent, I hope you’re getting through it OK.  I hope we all are.