In a few hours, I'll be heading to the Blue Ridge Mountains, where I'll spend the next two weeks in a cabin with my dog, Kellogg. My son will be house sitting, so the cats won't think they've been abandoned (although, let's be honest: the cats probably won't care that I'm not here - so long as they're fed and their litterboxes get cleaned out).
I'd originally planned to stay off of all social media (and away from the news), other than checking notifications on Facebook so I could reply to comments and the like, and posting here. Then, at some point, that changed, and I got to thinking that maybe I should just stay off social media altogether. So much of living with grief is experimental: we really don't know from one day to the next - or in some cases, from one minute to the next - what will be helpful vs what will be harmful.
To get back to the point, I was very comfortable with a total social media and news blackout... until two (three?) days ago, when the batshit crazy that is 2020 went into overdrive. Since then, POTUS has become the sentient equivalent of a smallpox blanket, a bunch of guys were caught planning to kidnap the Governor of Michigan in an attempt to start a civil war, there's yet another hurricane about to hit the Gulf Coast, and... I'm sure I'm missing something, because it seems there's another breaking news story every time I turn on the television. Things are really ramping up ahead of the election, and the crazy is a-flowing.
Suddenly, I'm not so comfortable with that total blackout anymore, because I honestly have no idea what the hell I'm going to come back to in two weeks. I mean, even this wouldn't surprise me at this point:
That said, a total blackout feels right, no matter what I'll learn when I finally turn on NPR when I'm headed home. I need this trip to be a complete break from my "real" life; I need it to break my routines - they've kept me alive(ish) this long, but they aren't serving me well anymore. I need it to dedicate my energy to figuring out where I go from here. I need it to start to figure out who this new Kathleen is, if indeed there's anything there beyond sadness, loneliness, and anger.
So, I'm going dark: no Facebook, no Twitter, no watching or reading the news. I might let myself visit Reddit now and then, but that's only because I can skip the main page and head into the subreddits where I know there won't be any discussion of the news. I won't be writing any blog posts, either, other than my daily OctPoWriMo entries. I'll be writing, but by hand, in a journal.
And so, this is a temporary goodbye. Be safe, be happy, take care of yourselves and each other, and I'll catch up with you on the 25th when I'm settled back home. If you have any good vibes to spare, I'd appreciate you sending a few my way; I'm sure I'm gonna need them.
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