A Book of Letters

Miserable and lonely, huh? Apparently that’s what the “unvaccinated” are going to be - and based on the increase of vaccine mandates, the restrictions to public spaces and services, including education of all things - it seems to be true. 

There’s no escaping it. If it isn’t the critical race theory agenda and the anti-white-everyone-is-racist-but-gender-is-a-feeling agenda in the classrooms, it’s get stabbed every six months so someone else can rich on everyone else’s fear of the common cold. We are so screwed. 

The worst part - there’s no conversation. No discussion or dialogue. There’s only “we are right and if you disagree, then you’re a horrible person and deserve to die/lose your job/get cut off from society”; of course, the substitute for horrible will be whatever the current “worst” offense is. In 2020 it was racist. Now it’s unvaccinated. But whatever, disagree and you might as well go wander off into the desert, alone and perish, because you and your opinions are clearly derived from Alex Jones conspiracy and NOT from a genuine attempt to ask questions and understand how the hell we ended up here... because it’s not about how this happened or why or whether we should even assess if any of this - the new mandates and legislation - is even necessary anymore - oooooh NO, we are moving forward people! We are going to get over this - even if we have to drop people like flies and create more division by censoring anything that doesn’t toe the party line, consequences BE DAMNED. Anyone refusing the vaccine is just selfish. There’s no legitimate reason for saying no, regardless of any personal risk you may have. And it doesn’t matter if we harm our children, so long as we tell them it’s for the greater good, meaning everyone else’s good, not theirs. Because some day, we’ll get back all the things we had before, right? We’ll be able to take off our masks and smile at each other, we’ll wave to strangers we see on the street, we’ll give our grandparents hugs in person - once we’re all vaccinated, we’ll get it all back, right? 

Holidays are something else. My family is split; not in two, but three. Each needing their own attention. And then you factor in friends and it becomes a hydra, a beast that cannot possibly be tamed.

Momentum. The initial push is the hardest.

I tell myself this when I feel the pressure of gravity sinking into my bones. A mantra of hope: don’t give up; every effort matters.

I have so little to give. Seemingly.

It’s a lie. I’ve given it all away would be more honest.

Stolen moments, vain little seconds. Here. There. The longing for cascades of torrential something.

It’s November and I’m not writing. This omission is a wound I cradle in silence. I have no excuse, save a single reason. I have to find a way to save my family. We are struggling and I need to find a solution that doesn’t compromise my future.

It’s a good reason. But it hurts.

I tell myself November can be any month. That the urge to write can be given into, that I can choose to do it, as I do so many other things.

But there is much on my list. The things I have to do daily to keep my sanity. Meditation. Yoga. Working out. A walk. A pause in the grind of living.

When your life falls apart, accept it.

Find the grace in humiliation. The sorrow. The shame.

Ponder if this is the lowest point.

Or if you have further to call.

Cry aloud or silently.

Feel the cold in your heart spread, dulling the pain inside.

Do not ask if you deserved it.

Avoid the grey of indecision.

Push past the fear and find the anger.

Forgive your despair.

Look inward and listen.

Put aside the old dreams.

Morning sun kisses my skin; water falls in a cascade of small poignant drops off the tree in my backyard, its branches barren of fruit. It’s still fall but the chill speaks of winter on the horizon. I’m wearing flip flops, the neglectful sullen child of summer, forever in denial of the change sweeping over this land, my heart.

I tell myself it’s ok to start over, to begin anew. But old dreams haunt me, questions ring unanswered, stealing sleep. My old life begs to be remembered, before being discarded. I used to call myself a writer. I used to wander. I understood my place, held my life in my hands with glee. Uncertainty clings to every moment. The future becoming today spent mindlessly, solving to dos that only repeat themselves.

Lately I’ve been wondering whether I’m a good person. At this stage in my life, my days are spent caring for my family. I’m officially domesticated. I rarely see my friends; most I’ve lost contact with. Everyone has moved on. Those without kids are doing amazing things, things I used to be able to share with them. Common luxuries such as a dinner out, a bottle of wine and uninterrupted conversation. Never mind traveling or broading one’s horizons. Or even shopping for oneself at the mall. I give everything I have; my time, my food, my energy, it all goes to other people. Except this one single minute to myself, a gift only made possible by being a bad mom and letting my daughter watch television.

I used to volunteer. Give donations. I aspired. I created. I was thoughtful and patient. Now it feels like I am a conduit, a tunnel, rather than a cave.

I have no regrets about being a mom. This time will pass and soon, she will be in school and I won’t get to be part of every moment, see every new adventure.

Then it will be just me again.

But I wonder sometimes what I will find left of myself. A gaping withered spirit, raw and bleeding and carved out.

I’m not on Facebook much. I’m about ready to deactivate my account. Because I don’t like posting my life online. My words are a different story. Smirk.

And until today it hasn’t really bothered me.

Until I realized that I have become a ghost. I am adrift. Unconnected. No one knows me anymore. I have become friendless. Faceless.

The part that bothers me? That the people I thought were my friends, the ones I tried to connect with regularly, outside Facebook, in real life, but couldn’t somehow, for whatever reason, because life just gets in the way; those people, the ones I thought it didn’t matter if we talked last week or last year; those are the people who I am adrift from now.

Because I have let myself fade from their sight, their memories.

It’s barely even 11pm on a Friday. I’ve had enough time to work, watch my latest show AND a movie, get into a new book, rio pages out of magazines and seriously consider painting my toe nails.

Why am I up? Why when my baby falls asleep I eagerly race around my bedroom and try to be productive?

Because it’s the only time I get. It’s the only time I get to myself, to be myself, to plan, to think, to write and work and do anything that comes my way.

So I don’t want to waste it. No. I want to take advantage of it.

I’ve forgotten my need to write. That this is an outlet for me, a desperate one; a place to reflect and organize my internal dialogue, to find the thread of one small firm voice that is actually my own and not a refracted role I only carry around my neck. So many things I’ve forgotten it seems; so many images, details that used to matter, that made up who I was, now lost.

It’s not even late. I still have time. If I wanted. If I needed, to remember, to stare into the mirror, the face I don’t recognize, the pauses between the gaps of memory.

My cousin texted “I miss being happy.”

He said the way I might say “I miss being skinny.” As something remembered, a desirable state of being but only potentially re-achievable.  I didn’t know he was struggling. How often we hold ourselves private, believing our challenges would be solved if only they belonged to someone other than ourselves. 

It sounds foolish when someone else does it. 

Somehow it begs the question: am I happy? Could I help him find the answer to his riddle, having adequately solved it for myself? No. My happiness is at once transitory and permanent. In the moment, I experience joy and delight; it is easy to laugh and exude kindness when interacting with my daughter. Rarely do I feel frustration or angst that colors our exchanges. But my days are stressful; from morning to late nights, I run the proverbial hamster wheel of modern female slavery: house hold manager, child care, cook, cleaner, husband emotional support and cheerleader, family communicator, planner, medical and financial advisor. The duties I would take on for my own personal satisfaction, any attempt of self care and expression, falls to the bottom of daily to-do lists, below any priority, pushed under the force of external demands.

But I still believe happiness, at its core, is a choice. It is a lightness of breath, the space between each moment, the ability to pause and examine, a return to self and recognition that I still have some control in my life, a small inch of reserve I hold dearly, the piece that saves me from madness and rage.

I gaze at her for hours with a variety of purposeful inquisitions, deconstructing her sounds, body movements, facial expressions. Does she have what she needs? Is she safe? What is she feeling? Thankfully she’s an expressive human; it’s only when she sleep that I can breath easy, and simply admire.

She has perfect skin, flushed with youth, her cheeky rosy and her eyes as bright as stars. It’s soft and supple, tinged only with a scent of fresh florals. I breath her every time I can, because I know it won’t last. Youth, innocence; it is alluring in a way I’ve never understood (or felt) before, perhaps because I recognize that I am in the other side of such life. I am now making friends with decay. Beauty will pass, if it has not already, from me; welcomed and held in her glowing unscarred hands.