I celebrate my 40th birthday on March 14th and I’m slightly nervous about having a small group of people over, which inevitably feels anticlimactic for such a paramount birthday but I actually don’t really care. At least we changed it from a sushi rolling party to a potluck. But yeah I turned 40. Big deal. We are at war with a microscopic virus and that is so much bigger than my insignificant birthday. God, I’m so grateful for my amazing friends.
my stepmom is on her deathbed with cancer and I can’t go see her or my dad and my little step brothers, who I’m actually more worried about than her. She has been dying slowly for 5 years, we’ve had time to process…I am anticipating how hard it will be on the family to not have a memorial, to have closure in that way. Covid 19 doesn’t discriminate. First I heard it just killed older folks, but now younger people with no preexisting conditions are dying too. This is crazy. this is terrifying. What if I die? You can’t let your mind go there Liz.
What day is it? I have no sense of time. I’m making weird lists of things “to do” in my daily planner to try to keep a sense of routine. God, I can’t imagine having kids right now. I don’t know how the parents are doing this. I wonder how many couples are fighting right now? I wonder how many babies will be made during this quarantine. Will the babies be called Coronials? On Quarantinials? I”m spending too much time on my phone. thank God I don’t have cable. I can only watch 10 minutes of news a day before the Apple TV CNN app cuts me off. Good. I don’t need to watch the news. The news is terrifying. I need to work on my peace of mind, not watch more news.
Ok, how do I handle this? Am I going to lose all my money? no. I’ll be ok, I have money in savings. We can eat beans and rice to save money. I’m one of the lucky ones. God, I’m so fortunate. Come on Liz, stop worrying and just be grateful. I’m walking around my house looking for things to do now that I have all this time on my hands, but somehow I can’t bring myself to do anything. It feels so heavy and I’m stuck in it. I have to finish my Ayurveda exam so I can start helping people. Focus on your online membership Liz- crazy that you started this membership a few months before the whole world went online. Wow, you were way ahead of the curve. But now everyone is doing what you’re doing. How will you compete? You don’t need to compete, you just keep being you, and doing what you’re doing and the right people will show up. now is not the time to turn into a shark. What is your unique gift to share with the world during this crisis? You teach movement, you teach mindfulness, you teach people who to know themselves more deeply. And that is valuable. Keep reminding yourself that.
God I miss my friends. I miss hugging my friends. I just want to hug someone other than my dogs and my boyfriend. Ok, well at least I can still take walks with my girlfriends. Thank God for my girlfriends. I can cry with them. and God I’ve been crying a lot. so much that I’m dehydrated from all the tears I’ve shed. I’ve noticed that walking accesses a part of my brain and I can speak so eloquently and clearly somehow. We are having such amazing, powerful conversations.
My stepmom dies on March 25th, one week after my birthday. I am relieved that her suffering is over. But I cry more. Knowing my dad’s in pain is heartbreaking. He’s so much older and now has to raise two teenage boys by himself. We wait two days but my sister and I cave and go see him, and tread lightly in his house. I don’t touch anything. We are just there, with him. We weed his vegetable garden, just so we can do something that feels helpful and productive. Having my hands in the dirt is the first sense of normalcy and peace I’ve felt in over two weeks. But we are all just sad. I worry about my brothers missing their mom and not having anyone to talk to about it.
I take more walks- it feels so healing to be in the woods. Sis and I look for morrel mushrooms. Why are those suckers so hard to find? I cry more with friends. Emma comes over and sits in my yard 10 feet apart and we talk about how strange people are acting and how we can’t take anything personally right now. I’m getting used to being at home all the time and there’s part of me that is cherishing it. But how long do we have to do this? I think of all the people around the world sheltering in place and a wave of overwhelm washes over me. Then it’s over. Oh good, my nervous system is ok.
I need a hug. Maybe I’ll just start hugging trees.
Floyd, our old dog is trying to die. I find him in the yard next to the compost bin and I just know. He’s done. I sit down beside him and I cry like I’ve never cried before. For Floyd, for all the people who have died around the world, alone. For the frailty of life. I make myself sick to my stomach. We put him down the next morning. I can’t bear to go to the vet with Zack. I’m all cried out. I take another walk and feel instantly healed for a while.
I feel the big beauty of this moment in time. Something big is happening. I am beginning to get glimpses of understanding it. But for now I will focus on just feeling it all and the gift of being alive to feel it.