Home Bound.

I was so bored that I lay in the bath until the water ran cold.

Must have been an hour since I got in.

And I’ve done nothing but stare at the reflection in the water, a still surface except for the occasional ripple due to my breathing.

One breath in.

One breath out.

The candle wick shortens as it burns the time away. Kind of like how I feel.

My cat comes in to check on me to make sure I’m still there.

I am.

I think about nothing and I think about everything.

It’s like, although I don’t have this novel virus, it’s like I caught something else, as I’m sure thousands of other people in the world have too.

Displaced from jobs, lives uprooted and dismantled at the core, I feel this deep rooted unsettling feeling that’s made my days ache by uncomfortably slow.

Boredom, confusion, uncertainty, stress: those are but measly words to describe how I actually feel.

My whole life has been become affected by this cacophony of madness that’s permeated all of society, which is rare considering I live so far removed from the world, all the way up in Alaska.

Without a steady job, without a social life, lacking the inspiration to be creative like I see so many of my friends being, feeling like a dump truck whenever I try and exercise, I’m struggling to recognize what it is I’m living for day after day.

I know I’m not alone, but damn does it feel lonely nonetheless.

Sleep, once a sacred sanctuary for me to recharge and reboot, is fleeting, at best. It’s a futile attempt at getting a reprieve from all the daily headlines repeatedly reporting deaths and new cases. I end up waking up multiple times in the night sweating, heart pounding due to stress I can’t quite place its origins at, and where dreams once roamed, I now wake to nightmares so terrifying that I lie there petrified and paralyzed.

I don’t know if this feels worse because I was vulnerable before all of this madness happened? I had just made a breakthrough step in trying to find help, contacting a therapist, only to be denied due to the new social distancing mandate.

It’s fine, I’ll just live with my feelings then. I’m fine! It’s fine.

But I can’t even describe what it is I’m feeling. Like I said before, it’s worthlessness, but also laziness and depression, but it feels mutated and more powerful.

Anyhow, it was during one of my continued binges on Netflix that something Jane said (from Jane the Virgin) resonated with me.

Her husband Michael had just died due to complications of being shot whilst investigating an international drug lord (straight out of a telenovela!), and part of how she began the process of healing, was to write her romance novel about it.

My husband hasn’t died (husband, where art thou?), but I do understand writing and it’s relationship with healing and sifting through emotions and feelings, and so that’s why I’m here today, as this is the one thing that consistently brings me solace and understanding during rough times (and these are certainly rough times, am I right?).

While these are uncertain times which have brought me (and countless others) stress and anxiety, I have to look on the bright side and embrace all the things I normally wouldn’t do in my day to day routine.

I shouldn’t be looking at what I don’t have right now, I should be looking at all I’m blessed to still have.

I’m blessed to be able to spend all this time with my family. I’ve had dinner with them every night, complete with cocktails at the start and coffees to cinch the night right.

I’m blessed to be able to work still, which I’m enormously grateful for, and while I know it’s minimal, and teetering on a day to day basis, I’m still able to get out of the house and make other people’s days better, one cup of coffee at a time.

*safely, always

I’m blessed at this opportunity to reach out to friends I don’t talk to often, making contact with those I’m always “too busy” to catch up with, as well as start conversation with new friends (hey you!).

It takes some adjustment, certainly, to acclimatize to this temporary way of life, but it’s for the greater good , and I mind as well find joy in the little things.

So yeah, I’m home bound for the moment, but I’m home. And I’m alive, safe, healthy, and surrounded by those whom I love and cherish the most. And that love is stronger than all of this uncertainty and disruption. And it was strong enough that it got me out of that cold bath tub and these hands back onto a keyboard where they belong..