There’s something in the air that makes me overly aware of age and life’s preciousness.

Maybe it’s the documentaries I’ve been watching lately on women in film/media that are in their 80s and 90s, creeping up on the end of an era. Or simply the realization that I’m entering a new age bracket with my parents aging and starting conversations with a possible count down of “what’s left”, and my dog developing old age symptoms. Change is always coming.

I always feel shocked by how I got here, to this age, to these thoughts, to this stage of processing so much on living my life. Wasn’t time just on my side? High school was just yesterday… not 20 years ago! Lately I’ve been forward focused in my thinking, really futuristic in my plotting, thinking way outside a realistic timeline. I see scary things there, expected loss that I’m not ready for, will never be ready for. But there’s new space that’s not built on fear. Now I see questions waiting in line, questions of wonder tap me on the shoulder, pondering what it is that I see, what do I want and what things will I set there?

Being in midlife, divorced with no kids I feel set apart a bit from my peers who are still in it with little kids running around. Our current life focus quite drastic in difference. Matched up better with my friends creeping through their 50’s, their kids have moved out becoming independent, my friends find time they’d forgotten to rediscover themselves. Yet our timelines are a near 20 years a part… I’m not there yet either I’m just here…feeling slightly lost in the dark.

Questions of navigating my life as it is, maybe some of the questions are a light in the dark. Maybe this place found me amidst all the down time during covid, each day so much the same. Or maybe it’s new freedom that comes at the end of grieving. Having found peace with what isn’t I’m able to see with a new perspective what I might now envision. I’ve wandered past my boundaries to find this wide open field…what shall I do with the next part of my life?

Still unsure of what part I am in, I think for the first time I’m honestly spent. No answers come forth and yet it’s okay with me to just exist here. No pressure to respond, no rules to follow, no voices of expectation get in the way. Simply entertaining these questions I feel a slight tip in life’s balance…perhaps it’s a season when new dreams are on the way.

The past sends reminders every November, that I used to write daily from a frame of gratefulness. Spending the whole month digging deep, for 30 days chasing reasons and places that I was truly thankful for. It set a bar rather high for myself, to be so entrenched in searching for joy in the season of darkness. This year I feel like I should find it again for a focus, to keep myself positive when the world appears to have shut its eyes, but rather than writing from the past of where I’ve been and what I’ve learned as a way to be grateful, I think for this round I will posit my questions with no expected answers. Wandering around lost in possibility of what I might see when I look for free, with no pressure, should or others expectations. Facing forward to the future, both near and far, with hope and curiosity, instead of expected loss and its fear. I’m going to explore new dreams of what it is I might want in the future waiting for me.

There’s a chill in the air, that’s crisp and cold in the absence of the sun’s face.
Leaves scattered on the ground layers deep, blown over sidewalks, burrying yards of grass. The breeze blows past with a crunchiness as leaves skip over one another in a hurry to get past.

My trees take turns shedding their weight, the first of three that faces north is stripped almost bare, prepared to face the winter wind with branches bare for snow. The other two move more slowly through the colors of the season, their leaves just barely yellow around the edges before dropping to the floor. The shedding continues week after week keeping pace with the dog and his coat. I wonder if they’re taking bets to win the biggest mess competition for more room in the trash can?

A little woodpecker sits in my tree, entertaining me as he jams his head again and again on the most naked branch looking for…something. His tapping drowned out by tiny dog snores as Ted dreams away in the sunniest and dirtiest spot in the middle of the yard.

I forgot that it’s fall and that the seasons change. I’ve been so caught up in the day to day I can’t remember time since May. I haven’t stopped a second long to sit out on my porch tasting the breeze, with nothing more in my head than quiet observation.

Getting out of town all summer long on adventures wasn’t its usual focus of respite, but biking and camping in the pursuit of balancing my lack of socialization. Introversion turned to coping with covid lockdown, dealing with stress after stress, feeling burned out, always in meltdown. Days are just weeks lined up with a checkmark that shout “Yes! It’s the weekend, I’ve made it through another one!”.

Working through feelings seems endless and wasteful, with energy lacking its better to leave them… they won’t just go away, maybe tomorrow will be a better day to let them have their say.

Memories pop up as reminders through time, that I used to enjoy entertaining my feelings each day, their voices familiar to me I rarely felt overwhelmed by their daily cacophony. Lately, like an opera of dissonance, their voices scream so loud I only want to avoid them, desperate for a quiet space to just take a breath.

Sitting on my porch with a hot mug of tea in hand, this moment of peacefulness somehow came and found me. This feeling long forgotten, of familiarity, comfort and welcome. A silent pause in time, not belonging to the future nor to the past, I’m truly present. No concern, stress or worry, no dreams to be had. Nothing about me or my life laid out in a plan, only this moment of contentment with each inhale I take.

Oh contentment! How long has it been since we’ve found the time? You’re the one I’ve needed to hear from, the one I’ve longed to find, to sit with for a minute and simply unwind. To listen to the things you’ve held on to, please share your thoughts weighing on your mind.

I find myself challenged as I catch up with the truth that the calendar says October and its most definitely Fall. My denial of the seasons change has quickly moved to acceptance as I layer up in jackets, boots and my blankets just to step outside. I’m caught up too in so much nostalgia, cocooned by feelings from the past. Fall has always been a season for me to reflect upon small endings and reminders of letting go.

The trees seem to grasp this truth as a lesson they perform each year in October. Adorning themselves in beautiful colors, they catch every eye in their splendor of gold, orange and red. Their final dance commenced in a rain of splendor as they cast off their leaves to paint the ground in a sea of golden amber. Their season of letting go so seamlessly shed without regret or denial, just acceptance of time passing and the need to let go. Parting with the things that will not serve them in the next, they empty their arms from the weight of their leaves ready to embrace the coming seasons’ burden of snow.

Trees are so wise from my perspective. As strong as they are staying upright against the wind, they understand the weight they can bear through each changing season, never impatient to bloom or to shed until the season calls out that’s it’s ready for them.

I feel the shift in the seasons and I have more to let go. I’m ready to shed like the trees in their dance, getting rid of old feelings that haven’t yet resolved in their end. Clinging to me for too many years, hiden from view in an empty room in my heart, I no longer remember to visit as they hide out in the dark…until recently. I found myself giving a rather hurried tour, flipping on the lights I stumbled through the door into that empty room surprisingly face to face with that abandoned place and felt overcome by forgotten feelings. “I thought I dealt with you!? I thought you’ve all moved out!?” I yelled in my confusion. The shock of seeing something dead come alive again was more than I could cope with, overwhelmed with feelings, the tour was suddenly over.

It’s time to let go of some things once again, clean out the feelings that no longer serve me. Learning a lesson of release from the trees, dressed up for the occassion I’m ready to sit with each one seeking peace. Letting them out to have their say, all the way through to the end. Shedding my colors of gold, orange and red as I cry tears of release and of fear, I unravel in this season of ending.

Sitting in darkness in this room I’ve abandoned, I see things now from a different perspective, shadows change shape when lights shine through the dark. A new season is here and it’s ready for me, still with work left to do, I wonder if I am ready for it too? I won’t know unless I step into this season, so here I go boldly in fear, I’ll call it courage, laced with more fear, I’ll label it vulnerability, I step one foot at a time into an unknown season, curious to see what it has for me.

“What happened to your blog?”

A friend asked me that tonight, missing consistency and something to read perhaps so late at night.

“I have writer’s block” I responded, ideas have sat with me but nothing has been able to run down my fingers out of my head and into words on a page. I don’t really know what to write.

What am I feeling? I don’t know… I’m filling the space and I can’t hear what it said, in a relationship with my TV until I wander off to bed.

I feel like a rubberband stretched a bit to tight. Expanding myself to accommodate life. The pressure has run out, the novelty over, covid lifestyle pressing, the month’s have extend over. Dropping out of the effort of holding space for myself.

I picture that rubberband as myself, so stretched out beyond itself, that at rest it’s no longer circular, with too much to hold it’s name has changed to oblong, incapable now of being the thing it once was.

I want to be smaller, like a rubberband on braces, orthadoncha criteria, with a single purpose. So small nothing else can get in to its circular shape, but a child’s small finger as it gets set into place. Not meant to stretch out beyond its scope, the opposite of strength pulling teeth in its wake.

Sitting in front of my TV late at night when I have nowhere to be I talk to myself. The dog’s gone to bed, too hot for couch hugs, I have no space to entertain the thoughts in my head. No desire to listen as they clunk around making noise, hoping that they will fall silent by the time I’m in bed. Trapped without exit they stay jumbled up, waiting for release when I go in search for the key.

Riding my bike through this pandemic has been a godsend. Getting out to move my body with a group of new friends, my social recalibration has yielded true friends. Humor and laughter, trips with my tent, small doses of human interactions keeps me well fed. Light and and easy, curious too, I’m careful to keep them, hoping they’re true after time washes away the letters that spell N-E-W. Cautious by nature…I appreciate cheerleaders that keep me from hiding in a corner of self doubt.

Lifting, paddling, camping and dining with my “old and true” friends keeps me grounded in reality, how bad I need them. The few most important, tried and true over time, they are the ones who’ve gotten me through.

Biking itself presents quite a challenge, fear dresses up in a boogy man suit. He tempts me to look deep into his eyes and freak out about a cluster of rideable denial, distracting me off the bike and into a tree or perhaps a very thorny bush instead of powered through. Yet, there’s support from these people I call friends, telling me I bike better than I believe in myself, waiting for me to collect the sass within and finish hard things and long rides that I couldn’t by myself.

Work isn’t fulfilling like it usually is. Virtual reality takes the soul out of me. It had its place and its purpose, but it’s gone on so long, I feel like I’m not helping, I’m over the grueling let’s get this done. I’m overjoyed by in person visits and that I’m still remembered. I miss connections, cuddles and presence. I think my half hearted lack of a brain comes from missing my littles… and the feeling of purpose as it supports someone else.

I think I’m trying to cram activity into the circle to block out the void that the shape seems to be, instead of seeing it as it once was, open possibility. My block isn’t a lack of things to say, rather the denial of hunger for feeling returned to me.

I miss “normal” life going to work, connecting with my families and my kiddos, having a purpose. Blending the space of connection beyond work and weekends, back to friends coming over more often, talking with them instead of the TV. Not filling the void with distractions and worry, but remembering how to breathe and be open. Finding my voice instead of a block.

Recently I was in conversation with a few friends, making small talk and joking around and one friend was repeatedly dropping the comment “I’m still single” with enough frequency to irk me. “Can we just drop the still part of that? And just be Single?” I commented back. In the moment I couldn’t tell what it was that bothered me so much about that one word. What was it about a single syllable word that irked me so? Was it really the word itself or had I felt the hurt that was protectively buried beneath a word laid out as a social cover to mask the level of pain that was hidden below.

Words tend to tie me in knots. I like to play with them, putting them in lines that sometimes tend to rhyme and unpack their simple flow. A single word can send an explosion of feeling unexpectedly. How can a word have so much power? This word still is a thorn I cannot understand, carrying around my irritation for a few days trying to unpack its emotion I stumbled into another word. Expectation. Another loaded word, 4 syllables of known weight as it pounds off my tongue in its execution of name. The definition at first unsurprising “a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future” felt rather fitting and presupposed, no help for me in my wrestling match, with a second line following “a belief that someone will or should achieve something” and BAM! I knew what was irking me for it exploded. There in that second line another single syllable I truly despise, “should”. Connected with “still” the shivers down my spine told me I’d found the source of my irritation.

Should and I have a history that runs the course of my past. It signifies a power that comes from somewhere outside of myself and indicates my direct failure. A failure of an attempt I did not make on my own, leading out from the dark a dirty single syllable called shame. My past is filled with events of should should-ing all over the place, I’ve learned in time to simplify with boundary lines stating “don’t should all over me”.

This causal link between two words finally got me to think. No longer stuck wrestling with irked feelings, I knew where to start with the unpacking. A simple still holds the power of unmet expectations that should have resolved and fixed themselves and instead read as failed leading down the path to shame. Is that what set me off the other day in the words of my friend? Did I catch a glimpse of unwarranted shame that festered beneath the skin? If I recognized this tone in someone else’s voice, then it must have been an echo of when it rung out from my own.

Life is unusual these days, in the time of the Corona. Life is played out with an extention of an uncertain timeline. When will things go back to normal, will life ever be the same? The desire to be free again to do whatever I please, social outings, big events and simply connecting with my friends. I am still stuck at home, still walking my dog around the same boring block. The dishes are still in the sink, the kitchen still dirty, and the daily drama of interpersonal relationship still comes from my TV. I’m still working from home, still hitting my head trying to connect virtually, still frustrated in my job, and still yearning for meaning. The definition of still “not moving or making a sound” seems lacking in fit for this decreased propulsion through space and time. Stagnating in frustration I feel my expectations rise. Shouldn’t it be different by now, shouldn’t time rebel? Why I am still stuck here when I’ve designs for my life that don’t include a virus and a hiatus on my life! How quick and easy it is to fall out of line. This bucket list of frustration suddenly overfills its line pulling the weight of balance off, I no longer see its counter. Why is it so easy to fill a bucket with the still unmet expectations and unequally so much harder to just sit alone and simply be still? The balance of the two feels like an impossible equation. Sitting still and sifting through a realignment of should and expectation involves so much interpersonal work of letting some things go, balance takes its time.

Sitting here quietly I can start to see what it is about stillness that irks me. The world moves fast, my pace is set by invisible expectations. Like county lines set to define what’s in and what’s out remain invisible to the naked eye, the lines only clear on an actual map. Society’s shoulds, invisible to my eye, sneak their way into my personal time line. Linear arrivals from point A to point B labeled as society’s boundary line paint a contrast to the looping and wavy lines of the life that I lead, creating a tangle of expectations to weed, most of which I don’t recognize as seeds that I planted. The world pushing me forward faster and faster, I should be there already, but what if the truth is that I am not ready to be there? Seasons change in time, when they are good and ready. Leaves don’t rush ahead deadheading in summer, but wait for the fall to paint them in color.

It’s so hard to see time while rushing ahead, a view that moves outward and forward looking for markers that someone else posted. Perhaps what I heard from the words of my friend in the phrase “I’m still single” was a word of warning in bold telling me to pause, to stop, to simply be still. To release the pull of the future that blindly leads me on, to consider the markers I think I am looking for. To drop the expectations that are covered in should, did they start off as mine or did they get hijacked? What are My expectations that I tripped and got stuck on? How tight did I hold them?

Still. No moving. No sound. When it all stops what do I hear? Is it A to B or loopy and wavy? Be still. Are my expectations packaged loosely boxed gently in with hope, or are they shouting should at me wrapped tight with threat of shameful failure? Am I still something….or am I just still?

It’s hard to untangle the web of feelings that get stuck with unmet or hijacked expectations. To counter imbalance day to day and fight for an unknown future. To hold the truths of hidden desire and longing of the heart. I want to take the pain away from my friend’s “still single” refrain. It’s hard to fight the battle between time and measuring up. Rewriting expectations that extend kindness to our humanity instead of unreasonable bullying by the voice of should. Sitting still for a single minute without a single sound, is practically impossible with the noise I make inside myself.  In sitting still for a few seconds at a time I’ve only one thing figured out, that it’s hard to be human and measure up with ones self.

I am right here, and still so fully human.

Overwhelmed.

I ran away to find some space,
A clearing beneath blue sky.

An inhale deep into my lungs
The exhale meant to clarify.

Breath. It’s me, myself and I.
Found again in this second to quickly passing by.

Waiting out the rain in solitary confine
A dog, a tent, a peaceable sit inside a hammock.

Covid, isolation, life lived unidentified
Work and life no longer dance together

What is balance?
I have no personal life.

So much time alone
I feel over clarified.

The world changed over night
Time reversed inside out

Like a bear forced to hibernate in summer
I fear hope has lost it’s shine.

A second for a break in a repeat routine like groundhogs day
There is now a place available for me to run away

Find myself again
A sigh, I breath, I am still me

Time runs out of fantasy
Back home I go to face real life

Isolation lessened with a virus breathing
Concern still feels rampant against my desire to just be

Turn on the phone only to find
The world erupted again

Who has a compass?
What direction are we going in?

I see fear raging again
But now it’s mixed with anger

Lines are drawn
Stakes are high

Is it clear what side is a side
No one talks. No one listens

Shouting, fighting
Anger only divides

I feel overwhelmed by feelings
I thought I understood

The language has changed
The terms are new

How to wander through this?
No other side to talk through

What makes good?
What makes bad?

Standing for a reason
Takes discussion and acceptance

Ignorance needs a teacher
Not shame, blame and anger

Standing for one and justice
Suddenly makes a divided side

Does everyone get it
Am I the only one swirling?

Binary terms
Black. White.

I need some grey filled in
Nothing is ever that simple

Justice is an argument
That accounts for all the sides

Slow down the pace
Fill me in

I’d really like to know
Because I honestly thought I did

Its confusing to grasp my priviledge
With the demand that I should already know

Please be kind when drawing the lines
I only want to understand


To walk a mile next to you
Really grasp the bottom line

I know what it is I believe
And what you’re fighting for

1+1 only equals 2
1-1 nets zero

There is no way that justice
Can equate such simple math

The only way to connect 1 and 1
Is a line called empathize

But I need help to know what to do
Because clearly it hasn’t been enough

The world is changing
And indeed it should

I wish everyone would settle down
Just shush enough so I can hear loud enough to listen

To the discussion that needs to happen
So I can understand the action

Swept off my feet in confusion
I want to stand again

To clearly understand the mark I make
While taking my place in line

Affecting change because I choose
No longer ignorant of the fightOverwhelmed.

I ran away to find some space,
A clearing beneath blue sky.

An inhale deep into my lungs
The exhale meant to clarify.

Breath. It’s me, myself and I.
Found again in this second to quickly passing by.

Waiting out the rain in solitary confine
A dog, a tent, a peaceable sit inside a hammock.

Covid, isolation, life lived unidentified
Work and life no longer dance together

What is balance?
I have no personal life.

So much time alone
I feel over clarified.

The world changed over night
Time reversed inside out

Like a bear forced to hibernate in summer
I fear hope has lost it’s shine.

A second for a break in a repeat routine like groundhogs day
There is now a place available for me to run away

Find myself again
A sigh, I breath, I am still me

Time runs out of fantasy
Back home I go to face real life

Isolation lessened with a virus breathing
Concern still feels rampant against my desire to just be

Turn on the phone only to find
The world erupted again

Who has a compass?
What direction are we going in?

I see fear raging again
But now it’s mixed with anger

Lines are drawn
Stakes are high

Is it clear what side is a side
No one talks. No one listens

Shouting, fighting
Anger only divides

I feel overwhelmed by feelings
I thought I understood

The language has changed
The terms are new

How to wander through this?
No other side to talk through

What makes good?
What makes bad?

Standing for a reason
Takes discussion and acceptance

Ignorance needs a teacher
Not shame, blame and anger

Standing for one and justice
Suddenly makes a divided side

Does everyone get it
Am I the only one swirling?

Binary terms
Black. White.

I need some grey filled in
Nothing is ever that simple

Justice is an argument
That accounts for all the sides

Slow down the pace
Fill me in

I’d really like to know
Because I honestly thought I did

Its confusing to grasp my priviledge
With the demand that I should already know

Please be kind when drawing the lines
I only want to understand


To walk a mile next to you
Really grasp the bottom line

I know what it is I believe
And what you’re fighting for

1+1 only equals 2
1-1 nets zero

There is no way that justice
Can equate such simple math

The only way to connect 1 and 1
Is a line called empathize

But I need help to know what to do
Because clearly it hasn’t been enough

The world is changing
And indeed it should

I wish everyone would settle down
Just shush enough so I can hear loud enough to listen

To the discussion that needs to happen
So I can understand the action

Swept off my feet in confusion
I want to stand again

To clearly understand the mark I make
While taking my place in line

Affecting change because I choose
No longer ignorant of the fight

Anniversary: a date on which something important happens that is noted in some way each year thereafter.

Five years ago today, something important happened. My marriage ended.

As I sit here reflecting I can’t really reach back farther than five years and recall much of my life in detail. The past has merged with time and feels like a story from long long ago when I was someone else.

Divorce isn’t something readily celebrated or readily understood by those who haven’t had to endure its tricky pain. I had no idea what I was walking into, only what I was walking out of. Years and years of turmoil and rejection made me disappear into a dark hole deep inside myself. My personality turned inward, hibernating in the protection and safety of an inner fantasy world I constructed to cope with rejection, neglect, shame and humiliation that came at me everyday just for simply being myself.

As the years dragged on I felt compelled to “fix” these problems, staying to face the consequences of my choice in a mate and lie in the bed I had made for myself. The thought of seperation, or a time out, wasn’t even an inkling of an option, and divorce was taboo vocabulary. Like a dog observed in shock studies I became like the ones unable stop the shock, and learned to be helpless, losing sight of the big picture, unable to change. The fear of believing I couldn’t make it on my own, coupled with guilt and control trapped me in the walls of my own making.

Weekly counseling became my “social life”. A place that was supposed to be just mine to unwind was hijacked by pressure to “fix” all the things that were wrong with our marriage, that I bore sole responsibility of, one problem creating two rather than two problems trying to merge into one. Pressed to excel by someone else’s standard of perfection with no empathy for my humanity, I ceased to matter. Each intention of affection was consistently rejected, the words “I love you” said with less depth than “good night” or “see you later”. Demonstrations of affection never moved beyond obligatory hand holding in public. The shame I felt from being rejected and ignored by the person beholden to my life as my spouse kept me from sharing my pain-better known as shame-with others. Isolation of the worst kind became by best friend and I unplugged from the world burying my heartbreak deep inside myself, becoming numb to every fight, exhausted in my attempts to become likable, acceptable, and dare I think, lovable. I became a zombie, the dead among the living, functioning throughout the day with surface emotion. Until I broke.

It is possible to break a person. It is possible to get to a place so devoid of care that numbness becomes your name and the bottom swallows you whole. You are no longer a person, you are dead. The choice to remain longer is nothing more than a choice to die.

Five years ago today I remembered how to breathe. The shatter of the end broke the glass cage I lived in and I finally could breathe and stretch out in my bed with space to be me. In the five years since that shatter of breaking free and learning to breathe, I realize that I have journeyed rather far and learned a few other things on my way.

1.       Life is good, Life is breath.

I started going to yoga years and years ago and I couldn’t quite find the freedom in the movement that everyone else seemed to grasp, lost in their breath. I would lay on my mat, my eyes closed to the sky as the instructor lead the class in breath work “breath in, 2, 3, 4, hold at the top, and let it all go”. Feeling connected with my eyes closed I understood how to breath, but “let it all go!?” oh please! I couldn’t imagine it, someone could hear me! The very idea that I should be so loud and share all that I just held inside myself with the room full of strangers, filled me with fear, how private and dangerous that felt! Used to skirting the room and remaining small, unnoticed by all, content and invisible in my shell. I realize now that instead of breathing out I was holding my breath, stuck in the holding too afraid to stand out. Frozen in time and unable to breathe. Is this how I was living? Always holding my breath? Life stood so still and I didn’t know how to feel big, how to be present, or even how to ackowledge that, yes, I took up space. Internally, growth still felt far far away.

My exterior changes were much more noticeable by friends and family who all frequently commented on how my countenance had drastically changed. I was happy. I was funny. I was free. The elephant was banished from the room and no longer sat atop my chest. His absence, a contrast that left me light as a feather, let me move easily from one place to another. Living life with such ease was a drug of comparison. Choices were mine and mine alone to make. Joy was available in every conversation, spontaneous adventure and new friendships made. Like stepping out from the shade and into the sun, my life was full of light. It filled me and bounced off of me. With so many years of forgetting myself the discovery of self unfolded surprisingly easy. I made plans to move out of state, a long held dream made by my 10 year old self, choosing to actively chase the dreams that for years lived only in my fantasies. Buying a bike I reacquainted myself with the kid still inside, playing once again with my 7 year old self. Life was not on pause but full and alive and that life that I dreamed of once upon a time quickly became real, and it was called mine, no longer lost to one sided sacrifice.

In yoga once again, I found myself lying flat on a mat, eyes closed to the sky breathing in to the top. “Let it go” said the instructor with breath resounding through the room full of strangers. And this time I actually participated, breathing loud for all to hear. Joining with those who also chose life, today and tomorrow. To breathe is to live. I am big. I take up space. I have breath. I am alive.

2.       Grief is a smuggler

Merging life into Part Two took up its own momentum and moved quickly toward new things. Those in my world were quick to support my moving forward. The world was ready for me to move on, yet blind to the actual divorce process that I was living in. I walked alone through paperwork, legalities and fiscal separation that wasn’t pleasant, easy or kind. Friends listened to what I faced with care and concern, but no one really knew all that I was holding. I knew that no one could do it for me, but wished that someone could do it with me. The end lingered on for a bit with left over words flung in my face that didn’t hurt much since I could no longer care, but still had to put down, while society was more than ready to welcome me in to the future they decide I was more than ready to accept. I felt isolated by everyone in my circle, everyone still married and seemingly happy, I needed single friends.

The world encouraged me to date, sew wild oats, and chase new and better things, but I felt bereft and stuck in a crack dividing the two worlds unable to see to which I belonged. Caught in a whirl wind of feeling, I grieved alone with a few friends to hold. Initial grief is like nothing I have every felt, loss of death itself, personalized to me and what was called my marriage, and all the dreams and expectations I thought it would be. This unsharable grief that was just for me.

Wracking sobs of apology for being unable to save it choked on lament that it didn’t deserve saving, dropped me to the floor soaking the carpet for days. Unable to climb into bed or move from where I fell. There was no end, no breath to catch just a pit in my stomach, a gag so deep, purging that hurt deeper than sit ups for days and days.

Blending joy with grief I got through my days, light mixed in shadow, the sun and rain came at me in every way. No day was “good” no day was “bad” just a mix of feeling all over the map. The lows were never as dark as the life I once lived, with new highs to contrast, joy seemed profound and it carried much of the pain. In my naiveté I thought that a year was long enough to grieve the life I once had, little did I know life had other plans. The sudden loss of my aunt shocked me to my core, just before moving away from family now states away. Compounding my grief of losing life as I knew it, the description of “family” fell apart and felt ruined.

Distance and loss added to my grief as it grew bigger, multiplying outward, my circle got bigger. The loss of my aunt was not just my own, and the sharing of that brokenness helped build a bridge to repair damaged relations with my parents who were affected during the period I was lost in my marriage. Grief and repair, who knew that joy could hold hands with the darkness.

Grief seemed to cool, a least in my head, finding tears on my face in disconnected moments. Trying to collect my tears and hear where they’d been, I found myself struggling to explain my feelings to new friends who had no idea of the life I once lived and the person I’d been. The depth of hurt and years of pain that couldn’t be purged in just a year like I’d planned. And the anger of conversations and actions left to the past, with no resolve to be had, I had to fight them alone, release their tension, surrendering and letting go of them.

Feelings of loneliness often over powered the day, unsure how to reach out, who would help me feel understood instead of trapped in my head. Were these tears for the present, or the past once again? So much of this grief was feeling misunderstood by those who hadn’t been there, divorce was just paper stamped with an end, shouldn’t my feelings jump in line with that end? Was there no one who got it? No one who understood the inexplainable and continuous loss that I still felt in my chest. More recently I found a group of friends who knew of the place where I struggled to stand. Their offered “me too” tossed me a thread that let me stitch up the gap dividing the worlds I lived in.

Grief turned a corner with validation and an outlet to express the ongoing confusion and lingering dread. The loss of a marriage, dreams I once had, my identity and the years that got chalked up as worthless, unloved and alone and tossed in the trash. The feeling of loneliness stretched out into the future the same distance as its roots dug into the past. Having the space to share helped dump out the grief that still haunted me.

I had no idea that grief lasted so long wrapped up in successive layers. I lived life overly sensitive to hurt seeing loss at every corner. Until waking up a few months ago something felt different and undefinable. What is it that’s missing? I feel light on my feet, the corners aren’t scary and tears don’t run deep. I’ve reached the moment, the end of my grief. It’s all been poured out, now claimed by the past as just another part of my story.  

3.       Regret reborn makes peace with the past.

The biggest regret I faced in my healing was coming to terms with the years I had wasted. I couldn’t see a way to validate all the years of living in death, I felt cheated and angry that I was unable to see clearly back then, regret that I waited too long to change the name of my story. Grappling with years of sequestered feelings, making choices without choosing, trapped in a battle only cleared up by hindsight.

Forgiving my ex for all of his misses was drastically easier than forgiving myself. Still reeling in self-loathing that was slow to burn out, I wrestled with time lost while growing from the inside out. Regret hung heavy in my self-talk, punishing words in my thoughts rang out until I realized that no one said those things to me out loud. My world had changed, the abuse had stopped, why was I still carrying those words for myself? Looking back with perspective on my 19 year old self, the girl too young to realize just what she was doing. Lacking life experience and knowledge I realized she simply did the best she could, that girl made hard choices and she tried when she should.  My 30 year old self struggled to comprehend its own youth, words and actions accepted as truth at the young age of 19 are hard patterns to break. Repeated rants of self-punishment and blame with frequent laments “How could I have been so stupid!?” “How could you do this to me?” It took work on myself to find grace for the girl who back in that day was still known as me. Slowly we grew together and the softness of forgiveness so easily extended to others, was finally extended to young and old seasons of me.

Another level of healing came from hearing from friends and family who openly expressed their personal opinions. It was hard to hear their perspective of watching me fall and the loss that they felt from my withdrawal. The distance created and the sadness they saw, the inaction they were left with watching my flatness. One more place to find grace without my anger, wanting to yell “Where were you then to help pull me out!?” Making attempts to find fault somewhere else, to lessen the blow of disappointing more than just myself. But I wouldn’t listen, I had no ears to hear, it was too hard to listen unable to cope with others feelings when I barely understood my own. Paralyzed by my fear I only pushed harder to distance myself from their dissatisfaction. But when I was ready, the second I was done, I shattered completely and all that was inside fell out. I found the opposite of lonely holding me up. Friends with no idea how lost I had been, supported me in my wracking sobs as it all spilled out and I came apart. My family stepped in, never really gone, and our relationship improved, still building yet strong. So much to forgive inside myself. The ways I had distanced without even knowing, so much repair and restoring still to do.

It felt heavy, more tears and old thoughts of despair, but instead of blame cast down the only thing that fell were tears that were shared for all the lost years. I began to see it all with a bigger perspective, all the hurt caused found real healing together. Emerging as whole, an individual person with enough value in believing that was enough in my skin alone with myself. The years “wasted” relabeled as the time I needed to grow into myself. Facing my flaws, my nature, my true self. Extending grace for learning to like and to love myself, extending the respect I only reserved for others to myself, and finally the hardest thing of all, finding the way to forgiving myself.

Owning my choices and crafting authenticity to become a person of action and integrity. Owning my space and ability to say “I’m sorry” for the things that were truly mine and not covering up others with over extension, leaving the sorry out of my mouth when those words were meant to come out of theirs. Finding the boundaries I needed to allow reciprocity in the people I would chose to let into my life. Those with capacity to support and build up, to challenge my growth in a mutual reflection with the ability to express much needed affection. Practicing my boundaries over these years has chased out my fear that I will end up with the wrong company back in the same hole once again. I have done well passing on those who are unable to met the criteria of my entrance fee.

4.       The present is truly a gift.

Finding balance day to day is the biggest challenge I still face. Looking one way for too long I find myself off balance. I have come to the realization that there is no perfect stance that enables long the endurance of balance. Change is constant, stress accumulates, and chasing a problem over here leaves no time for that one over there. Finding pace and intention to catch up with myself is the only way I have been able to try and claim or regain a moment of balance. Now that my grieving season is done, I still have pings that ring out from the past, that catch me off guard and color my life. Little battles in moments that sing of “Forever” or jolts from the void of unshared moments waging war in the future, confused by the desire for now, while lacking control to change the unknown. With forgiveness ongoing within myself, a dialog unfolds for reshaping regretful choices that didn’t pan out with acceptance as the counter measure for each of those moments. I have learned to live with softness that gives room for my humanity to show and my flaws to fall out without judgment. Accepting what’s been done and learning to move on.

Making peace with the past and speaking kindly to myself has given me these moments to catch up with my inner self regularly. If everything I endured, all the grief and the pain, the fun and the joy of learning to feel once again was all for the sake of getting here, to this place of pause to connect with myself, I would do it all over. Today I am me, a representation of my past and all of my choices, accumulation of rewards and consequences, all the highs and the lows I have endured over time pulled together in one space stretched out toward the future. Staying linked to the present no longer afraid of my feelings, I have found a precious gift. I am not made with the ability to hold my feelings as captives, tucked down in a hole or carried on my back , ignored repeatedly in the hope that they will just go away. Feelings are measures of one single moment, crafted by intention meant for just that second. Yet sometimes a second can feel rather imploded by too many feelings fighting to fit in the same tiny second. Feelings have ripples that tie to the past like a bouey afloat bookmarking the sea, with others stretched out long a wide into the future with a fingernail pinched into the air barely holding on. They have their own name, their own face and signature, with a unique purpose their self-expression adds color to life. Learning to listen I can hear what they say with no agenda for how long they might stay, but trust that when they are done with their moment they take their leave and kindly fade away.

5.       Sketches mark the future

In the last five years of living bigger than survival, I feel grief’s reprieve and only just now can I taste the future. Running here and there in the last five years, chasing time to catch up with the places I had lost. I feel connected and centered with multiple intentions. Simultaneously leaping in joy, chasing adventure, growing skills and new hobbies, crying or grieving just as it’s needed, still growing I feel like I measure out too thin. The pace I had started with unsustainable now. Expectations have withered down to baseline and I finally feel caught up with my life. I am here. I have wings to fly, a bird out of its cage with a new song to sing. I have roots that tie me to a place I call home, and connected to friends that I deeply rely on. I see the future called North that a compass can track, but the destinations still undecided on which direction I’m headed. The clock keeps ticking like a metronome keeping pace, mindful of speeding or slowing my pace. Living with breath for as long as I have it, and able to face the counter of death as it comes in the future, unknown as of yet.

The sketch of my life painted in feelings, the past, the present, and somewhere in the future. Caught up with now, I can start to see a few shapes and ideas that I might want down the line . The values I shape today will reflect on tomorrow’s choices and draw different lines based on how I react.  Relationships are central with emotional depth and boundaries, guarding the line for authenticity’s actions and words spelling out L-O-V-E in both directions.

Work still defines a passion traded for money to grow deeper roots in the place I call home, with an eye for adventure of any size to refresh new dreams and allow time to flee. Reordering values to align with my actions as a consumer and citizen, broadening my worldview to include community, activism and changing to align with the priorities and values that I claim as mine.

Standing here with a view of the past, it’s hard to see how I got here so fast. Five years seems too quick and yet it took forever. So much of the past was hard to un-render, the growing pains and endless seasons of tears that ran on and on into each other. I don’t really know the shape of my heart after all its’ adventures being torn apart and re-pasted together. Perhaps it merely deflated and now it’s pumped up looking brand new. After all the care that I have spent tending its wounding and learning its value, I am rather selective in a potential audience of one. I have yet to meet a “one” interested in its story, with worthy intentions and potential plans with the desire to hold it. Dating feels rather disposable in its view and I find myself disinterested in pretend productions. Perhaps there is a sketch somewhere in the future that allows me a chance to try again at sharing life with someone else. It’s hard to have hope when faced with the past and “trying” for nothing in the loop of endless dating.

The loneliness I face is bearable most days. Falling asleep with myself some nights I leak tears, but being alone is still a bit of perfection when compared with the loneliness I curled up with sharing my bed with an absent spouse, a I fate I wish upon nobody else. This life that I have chosen to live reserves space for the unknown to still be filled in. It’s beautiful and so much more than I could have imagined with all its color and defining black and grey thrown in.

Today marks a day worthy of a note. The beginning from something else at its end. Breaking wide open and rebuilding my life, remembering my footsteps, the breaths in and out, letting go of it all to be here just now, the day marking the anniversary of starting over in life.

“How are you handling all of this?” we all ask each other as though it’s equal to “what’s for dinner?” but deeper inside I think we all are asking that of ourselves. How am I handling all of this? I don’t really know, I imagine it’s having an effect on me, I can see the effects on all of you.

I’m used to having dinner alone while entertaining the inner workings of my mind, as my feelings run out of my head and into chairs, sitting around my table dining as my guests, we hash it out. I haven’t had a sweep of them joining me for dinner, the days of entertaining have waned, I think they visit all throughout the day and I find them all less overwhelming. Perhaps they too are social distancing, or perhaps I found a boundary in just learning to listen.

And then today one knocked on my door and said he rather missed me. He hasn’t seen me in a while and thought he’d stop on by and check on me. Caught by surprise that I’d caught his eye in this season, it seems he’d be rather busy. The word Pandemic draws long lines for his attention too long for me to wait in. He said he has the time and can get me out of the house, so without too much thought I readily hop in his car, “where to?” I posed and he replied “aren’t you in control?”, so with a nod I easily took the wheel.

Like a first time driver I slowly eased out from the comfort of my driveway pulling out into traffic lanes. Merging with society again, I recount the changes that I’ve seen. Everything has shut down with people still milling in the parks with dogs or running round and round trying to keep busy from the shock, and still trying to eat out. We look around and see a world unrecognizable where people are hoarding toilet paper, what a silly headline to read. As silly as it seems that hoarding keeps happening, I know some families that are still really low on diapers and sanitary wipes, I chat aloud as we continue down the street. More seriously for others that have suddenly lost their jobs, being deemed as unessential, they can no longer pay their bills. “And you?” he asks to reel me down to a view of just my nose. Well I am worried it could happen too, I could just as easily become unemployed. Although the government esteems my work as essential during this time, it’s ultimately my clients’ parents who make that call and if they need my services. Given the times, many families do not want people in their home, let alone traipsing their kids to a clinic where there would be social contact, leaving telehealth visits the only real option. With schools out, kids at home and jobs moving home too, families are overloaded with all they have to do! Online classes, working from home, and one more task in finding another hour online for therapy staring deadpan again into a person-less computer. I can see how that is simply described as non-essential for some. With less families opting in for services the question looms loudly, will we still be there when this is over? Or will we be forced to close our doors? With just myself and no backup plan I wonder how I will pay my bills. But that isn’t relevant to just me alone, the whole world is feeling that as the economy slows down. “How do you see the future?” he asks me as though I have a magic 8 ball. My view is unchanged as I have never foreseen the coming of the clouds, day by day still works for me, my anxiety tamped down. I’ve had practice with every day running that question out. Am I in trouble or just treading until I find a way out? Bills will always loom too large and income somehow less. The thought of losing my job…yeah that outfit feels too small and rather compresses my breath. I cough to clear the stress away and hope to change the subject as I wonder to myself, Was that cough intentional or could it be a symptom of this virus in my system?

Stopping at a stop sign and checking that it’s clear, I laugh him off and continue on driving safely down the street. Not missing a beat he follows up “Have you seen the news on TV?” Of course I have and Italy is so utterly terrifying and profound inside my head that I want to shut it out! The thought that so many people are dying and tanks are rolling in. Locking in their citizens, cramped up tight in tiny houses with barely enough light to let in. I see people singing and playing music on the patio, but imagine how it must feel to live inside their headlines when the song stops being sung. The fear of stepping outside when you aren’t supposed to go out, and being ticketed with a fine or charged with homicide!? I can’t describe the feelings I feel imagining life like that, they must be suffering so deep down inside. Will I catch it? Might I be next to die? Whose thoughts are those? I wonder if anyone still living is reminded of the days when war struck them hard less than a century ago. I think about those times and wonder if they compare, except this time the enemy is completely invisible.

“The US isn’t all that far behind Italy now, it’s closer to you, look at New York!” he chimes from beside me, shifting my focus back to real time.

I can’t imagine life that cramped, how are they sharing space? I haven’t seen anyone singing on their patio balconies. Without enough space for everyone to exercise or get sunshine without coming into contact with another human, how can they social distance? I think I might fear death too much to even attempt to go out. The death toll is rising there with no signs of shrinking down. I can’t imagine having to work in the medical profession, with an oath to save these lives and giving all you got and still helplessly watching as they die. Getting dressed every day in layers that pack up a lack of protection, facing the virus head on while watching it at its worst. Standing by helplessly and watching someone die, over and over and over again like a nightmare caught in replay. Living each and every day with the question “did I catch it today?” waiting to see as the next bed rolls in will your name be written on it?

Turning left at the next light I struggle for breath, my head feeling fuzzy. Am I winded from the pace of this thinking or is this another symptom? Reading my thoughts beyond my words he quickly probes for more, egging me to think selfishly “But those are not your shoes to wear because you’re not a doctor, what do Italy and New York really have to do with you and how hard your trying to breathe?“ I swerved left unexpectedly changing our direction. Climbing the ramp that yielded us onto the faster paced highway. The need for speech clutching at my neck in my attempt to outrun his pressing. I gunned the gas and up the ramp we quickly gained speed.  

In protest I yelled back in his face, What does all of this mean to me? Haven’t you seen the reports on the news that Colorado is quickly jumping, higher and higher the death toll counts as cases quickly mount? They used to say it killed people that were significantly older than me, those with underlying compromised immunity, I was safe from its captivity. I am not old, I am out of the woods, why should I fear what’s happening!? Staying at home is the least I can do and it won’t really even affect me! Angry that he seemed to think I should feel differently, something more than outrage for the world. What does this have to do with me!? My punchy response a weak attempt at best to line myself with a safety net, keeping the fear from touching me. Craftily he used my net to weave me in a web “That’s no longer true” he said, “Now everyone is dying.” It’s true, people my age with nothing wrong, young and still “in their prime” have recently made headlines. Families now minus one, who didn’t see it coming. Athletes and people labeled “healthy and fit” in their prime of 30’s and 40’s are running to the hospital instead of around the neighborhood. Underlying medical issues, hidden autoimmune, not so much a question for a novel virus of one. It seems to make its own rules and no one really knows where it will strike, other than the truth “No one is immune”. The facts I know come bubbling out and he comments “Doesn’t that include you? With your underlying autoimmunity, how healthy can you be?“ Against the noise from the road, I found it hard to decipher whose voice it was that was actually talking. Is that his voice, or my own? You’re not that active compared to some, what if that weakens you? What if you get sick, who will take care of you? And if you have to go to the hospital how will you get there? While you suffer alone who will care for you? Who will watch and love your beloved pet while you drown in your own excrement?

The terror struck me in the face like police pounding on the door, my heart beat thumping louder than the base of a drum. Panic sweat dripping down my neck, this hit too close to home, I counter back with a snide retort “I hardly ever get sick, maybe twice I’ve had the flu!” Too quick to miss he comes back with “But this isn’t the flu and no one know exactly what it’ll do. Perhaps you’re right and you’ll be just fine. But what about your family?” The punch hit so swift and strong the wind wrenched out of me, I gasped for breath that didn’t come. Is this how covid feels when your at the end?

Oh no! My Parents! They seem like perfect bait. Layered in with all the statistics: the perfect age range and just enough “what if” compromised immunity packed in. What will I do if they get sick, they’re both too far away!? I wouldn’t have a chance to see them if they were sent away. Alone on a hospital bed, with no one to relay how they’re really doing and if there are changes day to day. My life it’s altered too rapidly, being left behind to simply survive. I’m not ready I still need them, wasn’t that clear last year!? And what about my sister, yes she’s young, but man her lungs! What on earth would I do, she’s so far away! Even if they lived much closer I wouldn’t be allowed to sit at their bedsides and try to calm them down. Take care of them or tell them how much it is that I love and still need them. I can’t imagine moving on in life without a single one of them! They can’t catch this virus! How is this happening all to quickly I fear we’ve reached the end! And what about me, forced to grieve them unexpectedly, how to survive the thought!? And grief would simply swallow me up trapped alone in my house social distancing. I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe, how is this happening!? Is this grief, is it fear, or am I really sick!?!

Desperate for air, I scan the car’s door and dash for a button to push in exchange for air. In my search I catch a glimpse of the speedometer, 150 MPH!? Suddenly I return to earth. Looking around with clarity I don’t recognize this ground. Where have we gone to, how far have we sped, the distance I’ve covered getting lost in my head! Please take me home I lament, I want to get out of this car! Seeing me spent, he takes the wheel and I sit still and collect myself through my breath.

We ride in total silence, I am too shocked by my thoughts and the space I have found deep inside my own head. This world seems crazy but that ride was the worst, it all exists in my head! I can’t fathom these visits, they feel more like a curse. He pulls into the driveway and I hurry to get out. Before slamming the door he gets one more word out “It could happen you know, in the blink of an eye, that world you created could easily become tomorrow’s headline.” Thinking fast I reply “It’s best if we keep ourselves six feet apart, and don’t park in my driveway, you’re evicted, move out!”.

Back in my house with the door locked tight, I see him back out of the driveway and I sigh a big sigh. What a drive I just took, what a trip that was! It’s not hard to imagine that life could go there. Living in hell, or trapped in my own nightmare! I know it gets real, and for some that nightmare was recently claimed as their new home address. I am no different, no less immune: to fear, to job loss, to not paying bills, to losing someone close to me, or the loss of myself. Today is the same as the yesterdays’ and todays’ of the past. Only tomorrow is unknown and accessible to fear, control in this life is simply a muse. The page that I am writing will end on today. Tomorrow a page turn could not go my way. My story could change, as it has in the past. No guarantees, possible cost or loss or filled with negative possibilities that are endless. The only thing I can carry through time is the choice on how to live it from one day to the next. Do I get back in fears’ car, or do I refuse to accept?

Life is always this precarious with death a breath away, but unnoticed by most lost in the business of the day. These questions and fears are not brought on by a virus, but part of the equation of living life as a human. This virus pumped the breaks drawing lines labeled URGENT, demanding our focus right this minute to question illness and danger, the unknown future. It lingers the same each and every day, only now we all taste it together and wonder what is that acidic yet bitter thing I just ate? Suddenly aware and so attuned to our breath. Is this normal or is it harder, is it stress or fear, or is it scarier…a symptom of covid, the monster?

I still see the car when I look out the window. An ever present reminder that he hasn’t gone away. That Fear extendeds his proffered company, too easily accessible dressed up as a joyride out on the streets in the midst of societies absence. I remember that for my own safety and for his, I’ll keep my social distance six feet away. I will chose my own company as it’s more precious these days, sharing the realization of how much we need each other. I hope we emerge from this season of stress, loss and grief more empathetic and nurturing of eachother. Knowing truly how much we need each other, and that human life and this world are not disposable. And if today happens to be one of my last, the question I ponder, Am I satisfied with my actions measured up over my life? And if I answer with No, Am I brave enough to change the ones I have left?

The only thing I carry from today to tomorrow, is a choice of how to live through this day moment by moment and onto the next.

The sun has been waking me up in the morning, shining through the slats in my blinds. The brightness feels like a giant smile welcoming me to the day. I find myself lingering in bed, taking my time to wake up before putting my feet on the floor. Some mornings it feels that I could easily overstay in the warmth, but the energy beckons me to do more this day, so with nowhere to go, I get up.

The days follow the morning, with a slower than normal pace. I am not complaining. So many people I know are losing their minds trying to take on roles and fill shoes they never would have walked in all in a single day. Life felt fast before, for some friends I know the world has sped up and is drowning them in job duties they didn’t apply for, duties no one less than a fictitious superhero could address in a single day fall at their feet as they get out of bed. Parenting 24/7, meal planning, school education, working from home, no childcare, no school, no restaurant to go out, no open playgrounds. Creativity has met its mark for some with feelings stretched so thin it’s hard to breathe. With nowhere to go and so much to do, the days fly by in a fury and desperation for the all clear. I see these superheroes without their capes on the other side of video sessions I call “work” these days.

Envy is not a word I would use to describe the lifestyle these families are thrown into. Exhaustion and burnout I know that place well, I can’t even imagine having all of that in my house. With no escape, nowhere to run. I have felt that feeling before, out of room, out of breath. Is that restriction called COVID-19 or just stress?

Others I know, those active individuals who are used to treading far and wide on adventures to burn, always seeking to get filled by life lived outside. Action and movement, biking or climbs, hiking in state parks just out the door, their energy abounding driving them mad at the thought of being drafted to at life trapped at home against their will. Stay at home orders feel like death and their means simply to defy. The order and intention to become like one, sticking together inclusive, they flee the coup writing their name as the exception. Getting out just for fun, risking injury and a rescue all for the sake of one harmless adventure.

Compassion is not a word I can fathom for this crowd of unique individuals, their status exception to be just the one. Society has freedoms and privileges and rights, but being a citizen sometimes means surrendering the fight. Looking past a nose that says I am just one, to realize a ripple can still touch the shore. With nowhere to be the gift you’ve been given is that of creativity. How to find an outlet that brings you joy within a defined space called your personal zip code. Ripples reach those across the sea, others that are denied their rights to the same activity the same her and in New York and far away Italy.

My life seems less marked, limited in small ways that over time could just as easily kill. The absence of people and human contact. Living alone all the days of the year, I am used to the quietness of such solitude. The days always feel fast, too full to breath. Driving to work, trapped in a small space with too many people talking nonstop throughout the day keep my executive functioning skills close to stroking out each and every day. All the taking of time and conversing is nice, but only when a to-do list isn’t twisting my arm. Coming home at the end of the day feels like more things to do when I am already tapped out. A dog that is desperate for a walk and attention, plus dinner or plans to try and go out? Only a few hours left in the day, can I just sit down and let it all out?

With nowhere to go these days I can easily breathe. I am realizing the pace that I normally set is counter to my being, no wonder I am stressed and always run out. I fell in a trap called society and someone else decided for me what it is I can handle with hours of life carved up to spend on a week. There’s 40 for work plus a commute and non-clocked hours add up fast to 50. With 13 for errands and routine housework. Cooking and getting home each day with the things takes close to 20 with fitness thrown in, and wait what about sleeping? Do those hours fit in? How fast is a day, how fast is a week. Why am I running so fast through my life? The sudden absence of rushing through life has given me an abundance of productivity.

Living alone most of my days, people still find a way to fit in. My life somewhat polarized introvert to extrovert, my social needs feel mostly met. Children climb on me throughout the work day, brushing my hair or sitting in my lap while talking about stories of playing a game, their lack of space awareness is fully present. Friends are close by ready with a hug for hello and goodbye and those really good cries. A needy beast covered in fur might as well be called my shadow, needy for attention and affection all day, my touch levels balance out with the minimum each day. My life is a whole, with avenues for all the things, mostly balanced with times of ebb and flow. Feeling overwhelmed by people and plans to wondering where they all went. Alone isn’t scary but rather necessary, the time I need to lessen the worry and let thoughts and feelings fall out so I get regulated out.

It’s easy to see how others are living and not wish for a second I’d trade out my life so I could be them. SO many people stuck inside of one home, roommates or children and no space to be alone, I wouldn’t be able to sustain my own health with a lack of isolation. I know because I lived a piece of it before when my parents and their dogs moved in for a summer. I imagine the same that my life could be their nightmare, after a full day of silence boredom or need for people would probably set in. Trapped with no physical outlet of running to the mountains or access to the gym, no way to be a climber, hiker or biker, oh hell don’t ask me to run!

Isolation takes its toll on living alone as one with nowhere to go and no one to be with. I feel the changes without any touch. Children live in video worlds a button away, we smile, and we laugh and still talk and play. I notice the presence of space in my bubble is a full circle, unchanged by the time spent next to them. I see friends through a screen the same as at work, a button away and they are all there to play. We catch up, we laugh, we lament and we steam. Talking through feelings, fears and entertaining then once again and button is pushed and they evaporate from being in front of my face, I am still round and unscathed in my personal space. A week of isolation I already feel the presence of six feet on a walk, a shoe tap in place of a much needed hug. The reminder that people are real and still breath the same air that I do in my personal space, no just characters on TV in a show called my life. The balance to all this is the amount of phone calls, texts and chats that came from friends all over the planet. Unexpected good times that can never forget, suddenly we have time to reconnect.

I feel the ripples that other people leave. People that are strangers, familiar, family or friends. Meaningful connections I know that relationships are more important with roots deeper than my weekly calendar. With nowhere to go I have already realized that this is a truth I already know. People aren’t disposable and relationships deserve depth, do I actually foster that in real life with the pace that I set?

I think that perhaps I have been reading it wrong, putting the stress on the wrong emphasis. No/where instead of Now/here.

A marker in time and place on a map. A start or an ending, a choice still to make. The limitation of going out leaves me pulling in. A shift in focus, fresh priorities for the life that is coming after this pause. I think I chose a different path. One step. I am now here.

I can’t shake the feeling of change that’s tingling up and down my spine, it’s eerie. Like a message my sensory system understands, but my linguistic tank has burned up and I cannot grasp comprehension for what it could possibly mean. Sitting on the edge of a vortex and I’m helpless to keep from falling in.

I’ve know this feeling a few times before. The unexplainable acceptance of detachment. Of being fully committed to the future without having signed the contact. Wearing boots filled with concrete and unable to move or run away, locked in and rooted while my head remains free to spin around and around fighting with thoughts a feelings immobilized. Like the eerie silence of wind that dies right before a storm.

I see the current world status through filtered eyes. Looking sideways at the chaos while feeling it close by with my hands. It’s too bright to look eye to eye with its magnitude of questions. My life is changing, freedoms given up, surrendered to a cause that feels unchanging. Efforts lost to the demise of nothing more than a common cold that refused its commonality. Running rampant unseen and reckless in its damaging. Like a jaded Robin Hood taking work from those who need it and giving more to those who don’t. Burning out and overworking while stabbing others watching as income bleeds out.

Panic hitting shoppers with unrequited lust for rolls of toilet paper to line their basement walls, while babies and toddlers run around with bare bums. Character building or cementing deep flaws, me first flaunting their callused misunderstanding who it is their behavior is actually effecting. Social distancing, the gym is closing, frolicking about to keep life just the same, yet stranded and locked down with every canceled plan tells the story differently that life is most definitely no longer the same.

Priority, conspiracy, annoyance or vacation, this isn’t the life I signed up for, this can’t be happening to me. Priviledge, destruction, rise up higher and above, sinking in a lonely pit and questioning disaster. So many places to land, the feelings can ride out. Utter nonsense or the end of civilization as we know it.

This vortex that I sit upon blows wind around my face, the gusts pushing my hair into my face, blocking my vision and sticking to my mouth. I’m rooted to this place atop the vortex edge, like a television show of horror yet I cannot look away. I see the next couple of steps it looks more like a blind endless fall. Momentum carrying me from this page to the next. Perhaps just a chapter, merely a page and the story rolls right on, but somewhere deep within my gut I feel there’s so much more actually happening. Not the ending if a chapter put an ending of Part 1.

I can’t put it into words, linguistics have no place, this vortex only speaks subtly to the feeling in my gut, that tickles hairs all up my spine right up to my neck. The feeling that something has changed and I know I can’t go back, similar to birth and death, a door with a final shut. I know something unknowable until history looks back. I’ll wake up tomorrow to another day that looks the same as today. The only evidence of a vortex pulling me in is a view changed by the storm of a world dressed in white.

I haven’t thought much on the rarity of my lifestyle. A single woman in my mid thirties, balancing income from more than a full time job, paying bills and a mortgage with the dependence of a dog, living independently without any help. I don’t know that I chose this life directly, but found my way here through a series of choices unfolding over the years. It doesn’t seem that rare or unique to me, to be so independent.

Growing up I must have spent a lot of my childhood protected from the world. It never occurred to me that by being female I was missing out on opportunities or considered less than because of my gender. I spent most of my time with my male cousins and their friends and never ever felt compelled to be like them, or felt pressure from them to measure up, we were all just ourselves. Sure there were jokes and comments about throwing like a girl, but I was never the one who threw like one (likely they knew they’d get hit).

Growing up in a bubble of privilege surrounded by men who treated me as an equal human, rather than a lesser one, I never had to fight a battle for the purpose of feminism, I just existed.

I was free to be as girly as a girl could be. Dressing up as a princess in a fancy gown dripping in sequins to walk around the house in high heels with kid makeup on. My Snow White dress, homemade by mom for Halloween, became my daily after school outfit adorned for minutes of twirling round and round watching the skirt fill up around me like petals of a flower. Playing house and dressing up my barbies and wrapping my cat up in a swaddle and carrying her everywhere. Everything was pink, fairytales, princesses, horses and clip on dangly earrings-nothing seemed as magical as a dangling earring, talk about obsession! Whoa was I so girly.

Running around outside climbing trees and pretending the be a kid from the boxcar book series, building a fort in the backyard maze. Catching wild mice from their holes to show my dad, or a lizard kept in a jar overnight. Sledding and biking the dirt hill in the yard, reading books hidden in tall weeds, watching clouds staring at the sky, getting dirty and bit by bugs. Shooting hoops with my dad, shooting at the range, making mud pies, digging in the dirt, and climbing a ladder to the roof with my dad, and building things in his shop. Oh so girly still I felt, never judging my fun as girly or less.

Being female never felt like a punishment or something I needed to prove. How lucky am I that I was raised with such privilege. The privilege born from others fight.

1920. Only one hundred years ago women were given the Right to vote, and only because it was fought for not handed down as a right. As a woman, my adult experiences are not as naive as my childhood, falling into immeasurable holes defending my competency, ability, and capacity for no other reason than someone else’s historical privileged perspective that I am Female therefore less.

In the last one hundred years equal rights have made immense gains, but there’s still a long way to go. I’m so thankful for the women who said “no” in the past despite the struggles they endured. Because of their “no” I have a “yes” to own property and live independent, to go where I please without a chaperone, to express my opinions openly, to supply my own income, to make my own choices, to travel alone to another country, and participate in my Right to vote.

On this womens day, I’m thankful for the trend setters and bra burners of the past. I’m thankful for the women who: push boundaries in fitness and recreation doing hard things because it’s empowering and not for attention: set their own pace and define their own boundaries unwilling to settle for less: demonstrate professional prowess and expertise to fight for fairness and equality in their jobs by leading as examples.

Only recently have I really looked my priviledge in the face to see that in comparison with the rest of the world it really is privilege and not just a right. Having opened my eyes to see, I cannot close them. I’m not sure what comes next for me with this new found space. The world beyond our nation is still far behind the fight of this battle. Perhaps for now it’s enough to pause and simply recognize where we’ve been and that we’re still moving forward with things to do. Today I recognize International Womens Day.