Lately I’ve been down. I feel like I’ve been crumbling under the weight of this pandemic. And I feel guilty saying that, because things could be a lot worse. I have a job. I have healthcare. I have a roof over my head. The boxes of “survival” are all checked.
I suppose this is indicative of an important distinction for all of us: that there is a great deal of difference between surviving, and thriving. This winter has been long and dark indeed: I have lost some of my favorite residents to Covid, seen others hospitalized, and am feeling the pressing burden of keeping patients, managing budget, and assuring residents of our safety protocols as a rehabilitation director, while brainstorming creative ways to build caseload. The stress gets to me.
In the springtime and the summer, my walks outside gave me life. Picnics in the sun, watching the geese by the pond. Riding my bike to the park and sitting for hours on a blanket outdoors, reading. I didn’t take for granted these moments, because they healed me. But I didn’t realize just how much I depended on them for my well-being. The cold, dark days make it hard to enjoy being outside.
It is isolating, and I struggle with it. No one tells you about how isolating it feels after divorce. To have made a home with another human being and then learn to grow accustomed to living alone. Even if you are better off for it, the fact is, you will almost surely feel the absence of another human in your space more acutely, and there will be things, even little ones, that you miss, even if you don’t miss the person. I truly have had to work hard to navigate the transition, and doing it in a pandemic made it a great deal harder. Aside from a 5 month stretch between college and undergraduate school, I have never lived alone in my life. Everything I learned that was useful in my previous season of life, I have to unlearn to adapt to my current one. There is a peace about it: I enjoy the space I’ve created, and everything in its place just the way I wanted. I enjoy the too-few leisurely mornings or the quiet evenings with a glass of wine (not too much) and a book, or sitting listening to NPR. But there is an intense loneliness, too, that makes feeding into depression easy. One that might more easily be abated by groups, or church, or dinners with friends, or going out on a Friday - things that aren’t readily available in the current state of the world.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m so happy with how my life is right now. I feel so blessed, I feel as though my life is just filled to the brim with goodness and abundance, I have so much to live and be happy for. I am truly grateful and satisfied. But in spite of all that, I do still have ups and downs, and I’m sure I’m accurate in saying that many of us are feeling the strain of COVID right now.
I am prone to depression. I weaned myself off of antidepressants late last year. It was a difficult process. I am glad that I went on them last year. I had a difficult time pulling myself out of bed most mornings. It strongly interfered with work and I couldn’t eat. Going off of them was painful. My moods didn’t always feel like my own. I feel much better now. But some days or nights I’m just... down. And it’s hard to get back up again. It’s hard to know if I made the right choice choosing to go without them, but I made the choice I thought was right for me at the time, so I’m comfortable with that. Artists and highly emotional people often struggle with the darker end of the emotional spectrum that can manifest as depression. Where there is intense joy and feeling, is sadness, too. The piper has to be paid, at least so I see it. I can write some beautiful words and feel beautiful things and be moved by the human experience in ways that I feel many of my fellow humans cannot. But so too can I be moved by sadness and negative feelings, compounded by childhood pain, codependency, and a chronic illness. So this s is not to say that depression can’t also be a clinical thing, or simply something that anyone can experience based on circumstances in their lives or their processing. Because that is the case, too. Since I was a child, I was a writer and often a loner, and as a teenager, I was aware of these ups and downs, although I didn’t have a word for them. As an adult, I am glad that I largely know how to manage it. I’m good at coping. I’m good at staying busy. The repetitive and peaceful routine of cleaning. A show I enjoy. Checking on my plants. Yoga. All of these things help.
But the times they don’t, sometimes, I just get to be sad, and I have to let that process happen, and try again tomorrow. I enjoy the peacefulness this stage of my life has brought. I’m grateful for the freedom. I’m grateful for how much less stressed I am. But I’m also sad being alone, sometimes, because I miss the space around me being filled. I accept that. Perhaps it is simply laziness: I enjoyed the space filled around me because it didn’t hold me accountable for looking inside of myself for internal gratification or fullness. Perhaps it is just simply human.
Covid feels like a little too much today. I want to be around people. I want the “easy” route of companionship - sitting in a coffee shop, or swing dancing, the casual encounters with familiar strangers that make me feel like a part of something. I miss casual strangers, faces, and social outings. I think one day I’ll look back and I’ll feel glad that this time exposed weak points of mine and crutches I relied on to supplement my own internal sense of happiness.
But I’ll also rejoice and appreciate every normal moment, once those days come again.
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