My husband thinks I’m having a midlife crisis. I feel like I’m experiencing an extreme form of nesting that I missed when I was pregnant. I want to get things done on the house and sweep everything off every shelf and into the give away pile. I’ve read Marie Kondo and these things still bring me joy, so what gives? Am I getting cabin fever that I don’t usually feel until March early because we’re still staying in and away from others more than I have ever done in my life?
I am discounting the fear I feel every day I send my son to school and another positive letter is sent home with him.
I am new to facebook. I created a profile specifically for a 6 month long sabbatical trip that got cancelled two months in because of COVID. But I find myself endlessly scrolling through it like the secret to life is found embedded in some random post in a group I’m in. Is it because I’m craving social interaction in a way that I didn’t know that I could? We have our small pods of “safe” people that we still see on weekends, so I feel like I’m getting socialization. Is this what the trauma of a pandemic is doing to my brain?
I’m really not sure, but I think a lot of us are experiencing it. I’ve never had so many people come to my office fearing that they have early onset dementia than I have in the past two years. No, it’s not dementia, your brain is exhausted from coping with a crisis for almost two years now. I thought that I was weathering this pandemic better than most and I am in a lot of ways. I still get to do my job, I still get to see people that I love at times, I’m not facing financial and other uncertainties that a lot of people are experiencing. But I am discounting the fear that I feel every day that I send my son to school and another positive letter is sent home with him.
We have the illusion of control over our lives. Take driving for instance. We think we have some control because we have the wheel in our hands, but this pandemic creates a feeling that there is no control over anything. I can wear a mask, be careful when I’m inside with others who might have COVID, but it’s like being stalked by something. You don’t know where it is or when it could come after you and that’s even after the vaccine. Think of the toll that this menace is taking on our brain function. On our emotions. And then roll with them. I don’t get mad at myself anymore for yelling sometimes, for probably saying the wrong thing to the developing mind of a 6 year old, for telling my husband to go away when I’m too frustrated to deal with anything or anyone.
I think after almost two years living in survival mode through a pandemic, we all get a free pass to feel some really strange emotions. Conflicting emotions that don’t seem to make sense to us or others. Weather the storm with whatever self care you have. If that’s scrolling endlessly through social media, if that’s cleaning out every closet in your house, if that’s reaching out to friends more, if that’s isolating from friends more….in moderate doses, I think that they’re all okay. Because that illusion of control is necessary for us to function the other parts of the day and your brain will tell you what it needs to get through this.