Here Comes the Sun

It feels like years since it's been here.

The sun really WAS here today. Yahoo and thank goodness because it has been MIA in my part of the world.

I really think this self-isolation thing would be much easier to deal with and get through if we didn’t have day after day after day of cold, rain, fog and gray skies. Muddling through March is typical for me; it’s my least favorite month of the year. I often find myself grumpy in March as winter doesn’t seem to want to let spring take hold and by March, I am done with winter. But it has been especially challenging this year after spending most of it cooped up and fearful because of the coronavirus. I am trying to balance my feelings of fear and uncertainty with knowing that it is important to remain as positive as I can. I am trying to balance my need to write ALL the things that are happening while also having a hard time writing anything at all when life as I, and we all, know it has changed so drastically and suddenly.  

I am at the beginning of my third week working from home, day 17 of self-isolation, and this past week was a bit easier than the first week. I am getting into somewhat of a groove, which is good since I have no idea how long this will last, and the cases are increasing daily in the St. Louis area. My main goal this past week was to put on makeup and wear real clothes. And by real clothes, I mean my nicer leggings and sweaters vs. the leggings I sleep in and hoodies. I didn’t meet my goal every day, but the first week, I barely got out of my pajamas and hoodies, so anything was an improvement. I still had some bad moments and days with messy mixed up emotions and varying degrees of anxiety, but not as many as I had that first week. I am trying to be more mindful about doing positive things to take my mind off the fear I feel a great deal of the time. Thank goodness for the internet as I have found some great ideas that I hope will help me keep my sanity through this.

My biggest inspiration this past week is a gal I follow on Instagram, an American living in Northern Italy, who has been quarantined with her family for 22 days. Counting social isolation, they have been pretty much locked down for about 6 weeks. She and her husband have two young children, and she posts a short video each day of what life is like for her family. In each video, she mentions her family’s theme for that day—a word or phrase they focus on. I love that, and I made my own list of “theme of the day” ideas along with ways I can incorporate them into my life. 

The first word I chose is sunshine, and I have focused on that one word for the last week. Since sunshine is scarce right now, I thought about ways I can bring the spirit of sunshine into these dreary, depressing days. I have surrounded myself with all things yellow and sunny, and I am impressed with my sunshine-making skills. 😊

 *On the dreariest of days, I keep candles lit throughout my house, especially near the workstation I have set up on my kitchen table. Some are fake battery-operated candles, but I also have several of my favorite Glade Sunny Days candle. And, I am so happy that I bought this cheerful yellow gingham tablecloth before all life went crazy. 

*I bought this spring-y bouquet of flowers at the grocery store. I couldn’t resist once I saw the display of them with this little sign. 

*I spent over an hour digging through tubs in the basement to find this wreath that just screams “SPRING is HERE!” to me, even when spring is not really here. My mother in law bought it for me a few years ago, and I love it. 

*Back in the fall, I bought some earrings from a jewelry party my sister had because they reminded me of a sunburst. Even though I rarely leave my house, I have been wearing these earrings, along with my fancy leggings, almost every day. 

*I have been playing with homemade lemon lavender scented play doh. That I made myself. 😊 Squishing it around helps me stay calm when I am watching the news and it smells good, too.

*One day this week, Lauren and I went for a drive during a cold rainstorm to look for forsythia bushes. I love forsythia. They signal the beginning of spring for me since they are usually blooming at a time when everything else is still brown and gray. 

*More time at home means more time to cook. And eat all the comfort foods. I do make healthy meals most of the time, but is there anything sunnier than lemon bars? 

*Over the past year of dealing with anxiety, I have found that music is something I really enjoy, that helps me stay calm. I love my Amazon Prime Music subscription and my Echo because I can play any music I want by simply saying, “Alexa, play (whatever it is I feel like listening to at the time).” Breezy Summer Classics is my current favorite station, and I listen to at some point every day.

*Even though it is not sandal season yet, I gave myself a pedicure and painted my toenails bright orange. I don’t typically paint my fingernails, but I painted them orange, too.

*On a trip to the store yesterday, I couldn’t resist these yellow and orange pansies. I don’t usually plant pansies because they aren’t heat tolerant. And I don’t usually plant flowers in March. But I figured if I am spending so much time at home, sitting and reading on my porch, I need some flowers to brighten things up. They look rather wimpy now, but hopefully they will soon be lush and vibrant.

*I always love watching the sunrise and sunset. I have a great view of the sunrise from my kitchen and the sunset from my front porch. Yesterday, the weather was fantastic—warm and breezy, even if it wasn’t sunny. I happened to glance out the front window and saw a glorious sunset. I grabbed a glass of wine, headed to the porch and sat watching it change for about 20 minutes. 

*Something else I saw on Instagram last week inspired me to do some chalk art on the cul de sac in front of my house. Let me tell ya—for this old, out of shape person, it was a great workout for my legs and butt. I plan on going out every couple of days to do new art, as long as it isn’t raining, but it might be a couple of days before I am able to walk again. It was so much fun.  

  

It’s been a scary week, and I fear it’s going to get scarier. This time last week, there were 271 deaths from COVID 19. Last night, there were 1,500+, and tonight, there are 135,000 cases in America with more than 2,400 deaths. I’m trying not to freak out, but I can’t help wondering how much worse it will be this time next week. Until then, I am going to do my best to stay calm when I can. I’m going to keep on looking for little moments of sunshine, even if they are scarce.

Both/And

My last post was a real downer. I know that. I flip flop so many times a day between thinking everything is going to be terrible/everything is going to work out in the end that I feel like a world class gymnast. 

And I am now okay with that. I know I am not the only one who is struggling right now. Everything has happened so fast with barely time to process the news as it changes each day. Each hour. 

I am writing late in the afternoon on Sunday and this time a week ago, I was completely oblivious to what was coming, finishing laundry and the food prep I usually do on Sunday afternoon, when I got a text from my boss saying that schools were closed and we were all going to work from home until April 6. For me, that is when this became so real, and I had a difficult week. It didn’t help that we literally had not so much as one ray of sunshine all week, which just sealed my gloomy mood. All week, I mulled over what to write here, how to document this, because I knew that I wanted to, was going to, and I decided that I am not going to pretend that I am doing just swell when I know that I am not. That is NOT going to be easy for me as I often try to sugar coat things while looking at them through my rose-colored glasses. 

That said, this post is going to be more positive. I’m not quite donning my Miss Susie Sunshine hat just yet, but my mood is slightly more upbeat as I head into my second week of social distancing.

Yesterday, a friend of mine who is a therapist posted a link on Facebook to an article titled “Therapist’s Guide to Staying Sane During a Pandemic: You can let anxiety consume you, or you can feel the fear and also find joy in ordinary life, even now.” Of course, since I wasn’t feeling particularly sane at that moment and since my anxiety has been taking all of my energy to handle the past week or so, I clicked on it immediately because it reminded me of my dancing in the rain mantra.

It was just what I needed to read. The author wrote about a concept she often shares with her clients—the concept of both & and. She says, “It’s horrible, AND we can allow our souls to breathe.” And this: "We need to allow ourselves to feel the anxiety, but we also need to give ourselves space to let it go.” 

Her words were both the kick in the ass AND the balm to my heart I needed right now. I even wrote on Friday how I needed to find a way to not stay and wallow where I was at, so the timing was perfect.

Out of everything I read in the article, this is my favorite part:

“It’s horrible AND we can allow our souls to breathe.”

For me, at this moment in time, it means that it’s okay to both:

*enjoy being a homebody, which I tend to be anyway AND complain about going stir crazy some days.

*appreciate the good things that companies and people are doing right now AND feel extreme anxiety about what the future holds.

*feel grateful that 3 of my kids are home safe AND feel stress for what their lives will be like when this all ends.

*be aware that there are a great many people who are much worse off than we are AND feel sorry for myself for what I am missing out on and what my kids are dealing with.

*be concerned about what is going on in the world AND still take breaks from the news and social media.

*tell myself to not look too far ahead AND accept my emotions, whatever they are.

*worry about money/finances AND allow myself to indulge in a few little pleasures.

*eat healthy AND treat myself to some comfort foods that are better for my soul than my body.

*do my best to think positively AND have down-in-the-dumps days when I struggle to get out of my pajamas.

*enjoy having my family at home AND sometimes wanting them all to go away and give me some peace.

*hate the big, fat snowflakes that fell this morning AND appreciate that the snowfall really was beautiful on my next-door neighbor’s blooming daffodils. 

Both/And. What a concept. I’m sure I will have many both/and moments in the coming weeks and months. I can’t say I am looking forward to them because I am not. But, I will keep looking for them.  I will think of both/and moments as those that allow my soul to breath. Moments that I am giving myself space to let anxiety go. 

Oh, I forgot one! I can rest easy knowing I have enough toilet paper AND be ridiculously excited when I found a pack of 18 in my trunk today that I forgot I bought a couple of weeks ago.

The Week America Ran Out of Toilet Paper

I am not doing well. And not because I can’t buy toilet paper. I have plenty, and thank goodness I do, because America really does seem to be out of toilet paper right now. Not a package to be found, not at Costco or Schnucks or Walmart or Home Depot or even on Amazon.

Disclaimer:  This is not my usual “Dancing in the Rain” kind of post.

In the past, I always tried to keep the things I share here as happy and positive as possible, even when I was not feeling particularly happy or positive. That was the whole point when I started this blog almost 11 years ago. (Wow, it’s hard to believe it has been that long). Even though I haven’t written anything here for over two years, I do come and read what I have written in the past from time to time. It always makes me feel better when I do. And it makes me miss it, too.

I have done a considerable amount of writing and journaling over the past year. At times, I have wished I was posting it all, but I didn’t let myself because I have felt especially vulnerable and protective of myself this past year and only shared with a few people what was going on in my life. 

Now feels different. Now, I feel driven to write about and document this troublesome and scary time we are living through.

I am not doing well because the anxiety I have poured my mind, heart and focus into dealing with for the past year is sky high right now. Outer space high. The worst it has been in many months. I cannot stop thinking of all the “what ifs?”

*What are my kid’s lives going to be like when this is over?

*What if Share runs out of money?

*What if Tony can’t work? What if his company, a small business, can’t survive this?

*What if one of us gets this virus? What if all of us do?? What if my loved ones do?

*What if Brandon, who lives so far away, gets sick and is all alone?

*What if my parents and Tony’s mom, who all are already in poor health and have all the risk factors, get sick and die?

*What if this goes on for months?

*What if we run out of food and don’t have the money to buy more?

*What if we can’t make our house payment?

*What if the country ends up worse than during the Great Depression?

UGH. All the what ifs are getting to me.

I know, I know, I tell myself all the time, “Rose, take one day at a time. Do not think so far ahead.”

But I am finding it so very difficult to do that. I find myself on the verge of a panic attack at least once each day. My chest often feels heavy. I have hives somewhere on my body every day. I have a hard time concentrating, even to read a book. I can’t go out for walks because it has been raining every day and I don’t want to go to the gym.

Realistically, even when I am not in panic attack mode, I wonder, how can an entire country, the entire WORLD, survive with every business completely shut down for possibly months. I wonder how we will ever be able to recover from this. And what will happen if we can’t?

While my anxiety is sky high, my concentration is lower than low. I’ve been working from home all week, and while I have always joked that I would love to have a work from home job, turns out it is harder than I thought it would be. When I work a day here and there from home, I always feel so productive. While I have gotten a great deal accomplished this week, I have not enjoyed working from home like I thought I would. Maybe that is because I must work from home, I don’t know. But I realized yesterday that I really miss my coworkers. We have a lot of fun at work, even though our jobs can be sad and stressful and heavy. We laugh a lot and enjoy each other’s company, and I miss that. And it has only been a week. Not even a full week yet. And who knows how long we have left.

I have so many things I could be doing during my down time at home, yet I can’t find the gumption to do any of it. It takes a real effort for me to even calm down and read, which is so unlike me. Reading is typically my escape from reality.

This first week of people taking the Covid-19 virus seriously has been challenging; all the doom and gloom this week is getting to me in a huge way. I have plenty of food, yet when I go to the stores and see all the empty shelves, it makes me feel panicky. I suppose this must be how those who live in hurricane zones and blizzards must feel when a big storm is heading their way, but I have never seen anything like this before.

*I have never seen grocery stores where you can’t buy a box of pasta or a gallon of milk or a carton of eggs. Or toilet paper. Or a chicken when you really want to make a big pot of chicken soup.

*I have never wondered how long 31 ½ rolls of toilet paper will last. I’ve never before counted how many rolls of toilet paper I have. 


This is what the store shelves looked like yesterday:

*I have never wondered if I have enough Clorox wipes or Kleenex or laundry soap. 

It is all surreal. I am trying to give myself grace because this settling in period is likely hard for everyone, not just me. I want to give myself grace for struggling this week, but I don’t want to let myself stay and wallow in this place, either. I know I need to get my shit together. I have forced myself to take a bit of time each day to turn off the television and sit outside, even if it is cold and raining and I have to wrap up in a blanket. I spent last night and this morning coming up with a few ideas for ways to make this time as easy on myself and my family as I can.

In the meantime, I am going to be happy that I haven’t put on a bra since Sunday. There is always a silver lining.