I haven’t posted since last year because of working on a new book. I was also thinking about the choices I made in my life and those that needed to be made now that we were in covid-land. Knowing it was best to stay home made me worry that my agoraphobic tendencies would start their tempting but oh so destructive thoughts in my brain that hates me. I mean it can’t like the rest of me if it’s willing to cause SOOOOO much destruction. It becomes addictive to just stay home, to not have to go out and very possibly deal with sucky panic attacks. Lucky for me I could drive from home to the DH’s work house Jeez that sounds so Dickensian. I’m gonna call it the “play house” since the DH and furry kids love being there to play on all the acres of woods. In fact the cat, Andy, stays there full time now. So does the new pup the DH brought home last fall all the way from upper Michigan. He had a crazy trip going there during a time when covid was really bad in Michigan. I may have to write about it sometime because you’d never believe how much poo was involved (and it wasn’t dog poo). Oh, and in case you’ve read my other posts and know we also have a lab named Matty, he comes back and forth with me from home to the “play house”.
Ok, back to the subject of trying to avoid becoming housebound. I was basically saying it’s nice to have two houses so I could get out without going shopping and be worried about covid. I have a niece who got it last May and still feels awful. Our family lost two people to covid and one to cancer. My nephew got cancer and passed 12 weeks after diagnosis. The DH was helping a friend clean out a garage and offered to move the atv. Big mistake as he had never driven one. Backing up he hit a pile of wood and flipped it over on himself. He ended up with concussion, cracked ribs, stitches in his mouth, and legs so bruised he got blood clots. As for me, just the usual sprained ankle and ending up using crutches for a week after being clumsy.
Life has changed again now that most of the family and our friends got the covid shots. We got the Pfizer with only minor side effects like a sore arm and being tired. In fact no one I know had any worse side effects from either double shots but when I talk to people who refuse to get vaccinated they always say they know or have heard of people who’ve gotten really sick. I don’t know but I bet its fear after reading all the lies spread online. The internet has become a place of even more craziness, lies, and danger. I don’t even go online everyday any more. I just can’t take the hostility that’s growing everywhere online.
So anyway, the choices that are now on my mind have to do with getting back to this blog and keep my other writing going, too. I finally feel inspired to start writing here again. It’s so easy to indulge in being lazy about writing and instead just read and embroider. It comes down to doing the necessary things and sorting out the stuff that isn’t. I found it really does help calm me and have less panic.
Like many, I truly enjoyed this year of a quiet life, well except for all the awful stuff I wrote about a few paragraphs ago, and I’m not going back to a stress filled one that only ends in panic attacks. I’ve learned how to spread out all the work that needs to be done, that ½ hour gardening can be enough because more will mean my allergies will make me extra sick. The same goes for the time spent in the office/crafting room. If I can’t get inspired after 1 hour it’s time to move on to something else.
The hardest part of making these changes may be making the people in my life understand how important living a quieter life is to me. How just because they feel the need to be busy to the point of stress, that I’m just not going to fall back into that way of living again. I refuse to thought of as a failure because I figured out what works for me.
BTW, have you ever heard the term FOGO? It’s short for fear of going out. Aren’t we lucky the press has come up with a new shorthand for agoraphobia?
