I was SO hoping that I'd be able to write a positive post; hoping that I'd turned the corner - that I'd still have some bad days, but the worst days were behind me. And then, yesterday happened, and... I am JUST. SO. TIRED.
In the past 322 days, my husband died. Then field mice invaded my attic days later. Then a tornado came within two blocks of my house and within a football field of my son's apartment, completely destroying the home of one friend and damaging the homes of several others. Then I had to lock down due to a pandemic (isolation that continues to this day, because selfish, science-illiterate covidiots refuse to take the necessary precautions that could have ended this months ago). Then I had to put down Doug's and my 19-year-old cat, Prowler. Then, social unrest due to numerous racially-motivated extrajudicial killings by police officers. Then, I went on a trip to try and heal, only to discover I was even more broken than I thought. Then, my son lost his work-from-home IT job, and is now working in a public-facing job (in our county, where the Covid test positivity rate is, as of today, a horrifying 28.5%), so I worry about him every day. Then, my ex-husband's sister died. ON my son's birthday. My son was very close to her; she was quite a bit older than Andrew's father, so she was almost like a grandmother to Andrew (which was a beautiful thing, given that both his grandmothers are long deceased). He, then, is grieving a second major loss in addition to losing his stepfather, which is just another reason for me to worry about him - it's what moms do. Then, an election that was fraught with drama and lies about voter fraud that didn't occur. Then, a Thanksgiving that wasn't. Then, a dear friend of Doug's and mine died. Then, a Christmas that wasn't, complete with a suicide bomber in Nashville. Then, a New Year's Eve that wasn't. And yesterday, an attempted coup, incited by a sitting POTUS. I have friends who have covid, and friends with family members who have covid.
That's... 18 emotional punches in the space of less than a year, and that's counting the pandemic isolation as just one, and the numerous Covid diagnoses as just one. It's an average of one crisis every 17.9 days (yeah, I know: more grief math).
It's no wonder I'm drowning: I have been in full on fight-or-flight mode pretty much nonstop since February 20, 2020. I can't catch a breath long enough to process anything, because every time I turn around it seems there's another crisis. I've slept a total of six hours in the past two nights. I am JUST. SO. TIRED.
I have been crying nearly all day today. I don't know how much more I can take. WHEN do I get to JUST grieve my husband? This isn't the frantic, desperate, panicked crying from a few months ago; this is more a quiet, deep despair that just won't budge.
I'll have lost my entire first year of grief to the pandemic - does that mean I have to live TWO YEARS of the first year? I didn't "get through" the first Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or New Year's Eve, because those holidays effectively didn't happen. Am I going to suffer the first year all over again? I don't think I can.
It's not that I'm feeling sorry for myself; I'm genuinely not. It's that I am JUST. SO. TIRED; profoundly exhausted. And it's not lack of sleep; it's the relentless march of disaster after disaster after disaster. It's the anticipatory terror of what in the fuck is going to happen next? Back in 2007, when I had pneumonia, I was so tired that I had to lie down to rest after taking a shower - before I could even dry off. This is like that, but without the hypoxia. Even the smallest task requires a herculean effort, and I just don't have it in me anymore.
I am tired down to my very soul. And so completely, utterly alone.
I'm sorry, y'all. I was really hoping to write a positive post. But it appears that hope has again abandoned me.
I am JUST. SO. TIRED.
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