Lockdown thoughts and babblings... and gratitude for the blessing of friendship!

Show of hands, who's having a hard time with this lockdown?

COME ON, DON'T BE SHY, WE'RE ALL COOL HERE. Anyone? I know I am. My main issue is the place I WANT to be, I CANNOT be. I haven't left my flat in ... what's it been now... three days. I normally try to go for walks every day. Just once a day sometimes more. To clear my head. I decided no, I'm staying home and doing some actual work on my writing, and .. well... I will say THIS much for this lockdown: it's done WONDERS for my writing! It's really improved! ^_^ So, silver lining, yes?

So... tonight. Oh, tonight. BLEH. Took a brain break from writing. Had a panic attack. Stupid mental hellhounds, man., barking up a storm in my head! I'm okay now, though, I promise. Cabin fever and I don't get on well, I can tell you with ALL sincerity! Grateful for the amazing friends I have solid connections with for keeping me company throughout the day yesterday (uhh... what day was that? Oh, yeah. Saturday. LOL!) and for the conversations with people tonight that I'm only peripherally connected with, but grateful to have had the company in PM with them as a more than welcome distraction!


This cabin fever, man, it's getting to me. It's done wonders for my writing (shared an article I'd been working on all day with my friend/mentor/editor whose reaction when I shared the first chunk of it meant a LOT to me. /sigh (Let me tell you, I owe a MASSIVE apology, my friend, for the 'finished' copy... it's so not finished, but it's a raw copy... This poor soul... I'm so sorry... lol )

This poor soul is going to have a small basket fire to deal with on that last half (and for that, I'm so sorry in advance!). The second-to-last sentence needs to be sanded down a LOT, and I'm not super-in-love with the second chunk. Parts of it, ...I suppose so, yes, but the other parts... again, really sorry for to my friend to have to endure that one. :( smh. It's a topic I've been working on since Thursday, and finally yesterday (Saturday), it started to allow me to hit the keys.

Decided to get a little artsy and tweak things around here a little to make it a bit more friendly on the eyes, for the sake of readability. Please don't mind the mess, all the construction supplies laying around. Mind the hammers and buckets and plastic when you venture in. It's temporary! I promise! It'll look snazzy later, but it was kinda … well, it was a lot worse until I figured out a few things. Still TEMPORARY. I got the sawdust and busted pieces cleared out for the most part. :P

So, yeah. This lockdown business, we’re so not cool! While yes, by nature, I’m a homebody, it’s the isolation away from my parish family that I’m climbing the walls about. Today is Easter. It doesn’t feel like Easter. But I want to share something with you. Someone I know in a pretty peripheral sense, shared a verse with me just now, as I type this, and her timing is TREMENDOUSLY appreciated!

So, a gal that I really only know peripherally on Facebook, reached out to me completely at random tonight, her name is Jo, and I hope what she shared with me will help you all, too! The verse comes from my most favouritestest (totally a word, because I said so! ;) ) of the four Gospels:

Has anyone else lost their sense of time? I’m serious. I’m constantly having to look at my calendar to remember what day of the week it even is. I mean, it’s getting so frustratingly boring around here, I’ve considered buying myself a telly again! I sold my telly almost a year ago! On purpose! I barely watched the thing! Haven’t had need of one in a long time, and now that this pandemic is going on, I’ve weighed the consideration of buying one again. Listen, y’all, if you catch me cruising the internets for one, please, snatch a ruler and smack me on my fingers! HARD! I’m serious!

I live in a small flat, 650sqft. I feel like I’m floating around here, trying to find stuff to do. I have my writing, of course, and my guitar, but writing can only do so much, and having to go through lotion now to keep my hands from cracking and bleeding… playing my guitar has become a new adventure in pain on my fingertips. Not cool at all. Poor Olaf is sitting there all pitiful now. :( Tried to get Libby by Overdrive to work on my Nook… I think I’ve got it figured out. Wanted to check out a book that one of the people who reached out to me tonight mentioned, but unfortunately it isn’t available electronically. And I don’t check out physical books from the library anymore (it’s a tic I’ve developed at my last apartment), and with the libraries being closed now, anyway, until this social distancing is no longer a thing… well… even if I did check out physical copies… that can’t happen at the present time, anyway. +sigh+

Not to mention how people are people and do people things like go to bed and sleep. I miss sleep. I’m sitting here like, ‘Yup, sleep is good…’ but those mental hellhounds are bugging me trying to tempt me to take things personally. And I refuse. I flat out refuse to go there. People get tired, they get sick, they need sleep, regardless how they’re feeling. It’s not a slight against me. Life happens to all of us, it’s inevitable!

What’s a girl to do when she’s having a hard night and everyone on social media’s asleep? Hit up the old Tubes of Yous. That’s right, I went on YouTube to look up videos I’ve already seen but needed a pick-me-up. I also went on Discord to a server I’m slowly navigating that’s been tremendously helpful to people who have the same illness I do. That’s been a great place to just kind of sit and be in for a minute, and I’m grateful to the people who run it, b/c I promise you, tonight’s been rough. And my brain hasn’t been kind to me. Had a fantastic writing day, only to have one little thing try to take me out? HA. NOPE.

It is now almost five in the morning, and I’m still wide awake. The tea I am drinking isn’t caffeinated, but I’m still wide awake. I know the reasons. I won’t go into those reasons on here. Let’s just say that they’re frustrations that I’m working through and be done.

Got me thinking, though, about some ways to get through this lockdown so we don’t end up losing our collective minds.

I know some of y’all reading this clearly love to read, so let’s start there:

-do you have a book you haven’t read yet on your shelf, you’ve been putting off? Why not dust it off and crack it open?

-do you like music? Turn something fun on and dance around like a goofball!

-do you, like yours truly, play an instrument and have access to said instrument? Pick it up and start playing.

-do you want to do something for someone else? Find a nursing home and give them a call. Let them know you’d like to talk to someone who never gets visitors. You’d not only be brightening someone else’s day, but you’ll likely have a new friend by the end of the conversation!

-do you draw? Paint? Pull out the art supplies and make some art.

-do you like to bake? Have stuff to make something new and different? Haul out the ingredients and throw something together. Go nuts.

-learn a new language. I’ve found that Duolingo has some really interesting languages on their website, and even if you’re like me and are incredibly stingy with your space on your mobile devices, you can go to the website and do it from there. It’s free and you’ll learn something new.

I know, on some of these, I need to take my own advice, and on other things on this little list, I’m already doing. I know this lockdown’s hard on all of us… but let me tell you something else I’ve come to discover: there’s so much out there that I’ve completely forgotten about that I’m getting reacquainted with and rediscovering old hobbies long-forgotten.

Gonna tell you something else, too: This lockdown has connected me with a group of amazing people I really haven’t spoken to much, but tonight when I put a post up asking for people who would be up for awhile, because I, personally, don’t sleep, but I know that people out there DO and I don’t want to deprive them of their time with the ol’ Sandman. Just because he and I don’t really talk much, I’m not going to try to keep someone up if I don’t have a legitimate reason.

And no, being bored on a Saturday night is not a valid reason to keep someone who isn’t an insomniac awake.

Nonetheless, though, I’m grateful. I’m grateful that I’ve a roof over my head, I’ve got things to do, and even though I can’t physically hang out with people I love and look up to and respect and learn lots from, I have a phone and internet and can reach out to them through those means. Plus, my class starts back up tomorrow! Another day closer to finishing up that Specialization I’ve been labouring over for two years! Something that should’ve only taken six months!

Anyway, it’s five in the morning, and I should attempt sleep. Mass in a handful of hours. Thank you for listening to me kvetch. :)

We’re all in this together, and if we can winter this, we can get through anything! Stay safe, y’all!