I reach out, and people usually reach back. It doesn’t feel like enough. Too much time on my hands. I turn on public radio. People are reporting fear and capitalizing on fear, even here. I turn it off. I reach out. Sometimes it goes well. Sometimes, there’s nothing. I feel like a slug. I sit a lot. I don’t want to. I want to be busy. I want to be helpful. I want to be useful. I turn in on myself.
I read. I knit. I watch TV. I think about going to the gym, riding my bike. Sometimes I do, and I always feel better. Anxiety creates a layer just beneath my skin, just behind my eyes. It’s not overwhelming. I study it with interest. Where is it coming from? Sometimes I feel anxious because of something I ate. Sometimes thoughts start it, and then it goes to my body. I don’t think of myself as an anxious person.
All this wondering and doubting started during COVID. I barely remember who I was before March of 2020. Lots of things have changed, of course. I hardly ever see my kids, the people I focused on for so many years. I don’t work full time anymore – not that I really ever did. I worked a lot of jobs and ran around a lot, but rarely worked 40 hours a week, even with everything combined – except for those weeks that I worked 60.
I’m not that professional, working musician anymore. The place I worked the most last year, nearly every week, sees me as an independent contractor. I don’t feel included.
I earned two units of chaplaincy training. It felt like the way I needed to go. And it languishes. Just as I have been a natural teacher and have only really worked teaching private lessons, I am also a natural chaplain … and nothing happens with it. Turning and turning. Wondering and wandering. My gifts would be welcome, but not compensated. And I use them even without compensation. Because I care about people. I attend. And I listen. And I love.
The communities I participated in this past year have dispersed for the summer. I have Archie. Blessedly, I always have Archie. I feel close to tears. I am aging, and the more I turn inward the quicker that will happen. This is not my essence. My essence is clogged by too much sitting, by lack of focus.
I get up every day. I do stuff. It’s okay. I turn and turn. It’s okay. I look inward and outward. It’s okay. Everything is always at least okay. I have many friends, and I am essentially alone. Are we all essentially alone? Perhaps. I haven’t always felt this way. It is an interesting time.