Pause Button

I really don’t know how to operate right now. There is no book for how to emotionally navigate this new world we seem to be living in. It feels never ending and vast and so so far away. Everything feels far away. My job, grad school, my family and friends. Nothing feels real or tangible. I can’t touch anything or anyone. I can’t smell the apples at the grocery store to tell if they are ripe. I can’t touch the worn surfaces of old furniture at the thrift store for fear of being contaminated and infecting people that I love. Those things are all off limits. Life feels OFF LIMITS.

I am trapped behind glass walls watching time go by.

When I sit down to work or do my school work I become frozen with anxiety. I feel like I am floating above my body and my heart starts beating out of rhythm. My mind begins to race and think, “Why am I doing this? Why do I have to keep doing these things?” Everything seems somehow mundane and simultaneously surreal. “Why should I have to write a lesson plan or a paper on theories? WHAT IS THE POINT?” My structure has been taken away, my life has been ripped away from me and I am supposed to somehow manage? Somehow I am supposed to feel positive, hopeful, keep moving, keep working, keep living my life.

But where is the room for the grief? Where is the room for the longing and aching for the moments when I was able to get into my car and just go somewhere? Anywhere. Where is the space for this heavy smothering blanket of depression that seems to have settled into my life and wrapped itself around my mind and my heart? Where is the mandated order that we all have to stop doing things like work and school for at least two weeks while we try to adjust mentally, emotionally, and physically to these new demands and restrictions?

Nothing is usual. Everything feels completely royally fucked up. I want a pause button to freeze my life and my obligations so I can cry and wail and scream. Rage for days. And then, maybe, I can pick myself back up and keep going.

One foot in front of the other.