The Hardest One Yet

Maybe it's the pandemic and associated anxieties, flaring with each new variant, and now in its second full holiday season.

Maybe it's the gift my late husband's brother and his wife and I went in on together for our mutual in-laws.

Maybe it's my county sheriff, who is unwilling to enforce masking mandates.

Maybe it's the oh-poor-me folks I deal with every day.

Maybe it's folks whose idea of politics violates others' (like me) ideas of human rights.

Maybe it's everything I've written about - which includes some or most of the things above - since I started on Vocal just under a year ago.

Maybe it's the missing box of ornaments or shipping speed (low) and shipping cost (high) or my inability to process dairy. Or work or money or hypercapitalist patriarchy.

Maybe it's my eldest being 19 now.

Maybe it's my youngest being 14.

Maybe it's me being 53.

Maybe the last of the numbness from my husband's death has worn off.

Or maybe it's some combination of these things.

Whatever it is, one, some, or all of the above, I'm having a rough time this year.

I'm okay. I'm not all right, but I am okay.

There's a difference, you know.

But right now, life feels very like it did in early September of 2016, three weeks after Laston's death and the beginning of The School Year of Doom - everything feels just a little wrong.

I wrote the first part of this in the morning before I left to run errands. And now I think maybe I know what the issue is - it really is All of the Above.

When I was out (with my eldest; the younger stayed home and wrapped gifts, I believe) we encountered a maskless barista (in our county - see above) and a fairly large crowd at the FedEx place (unsurprising). The drugstore pharmacy wasn't terribly crowded, and everyone there was masked. And although both the pharmacy and the FedEx are in the same county, they are both facilities that enforce masking.

But even with masks (and we wore ours even though the barista did not), it's still quite nerve-wracking to be out in it all in an environment you don't control. At work, although I work with germy people in a germ factory profession, those people are in my care. This means that I have the authority to tell them to put the mask back on, yes, I mean over your nose, and do it now!

I don't feel like I have that authority in public, regarding strangers. The best I can do is either get in and out fast or pull out the old passive aggression and look people straight in the eye while adjusting my mask in an ostentatious fashion. Abby (19, who was with me), is even worse at this because she's an introvert. Lizzy (14, not there today) is also an introvert, but she's a very loud one and is more than happy to be a snarky jerk to people she perceives as deserving it.

So there's the pandemic fatigue (or possibly paranoia) and that's part of it. The gift we shipped to the inlaws is part of it; there were a lot of memories involved in the giving. Memories that we are missing because of the box of ornaments we can't find. My kids getting competent with bits of adult life is part, especially as they're still not experts, and sometimes that becomes glaringly obvious. I taught my 19-year-old to use an ATM a few days ago, for instance.

I know I've said it before, many times, but my extroverted self is getting more and more introverted. People are hard and scary and I find myself having less and less patience with them these days.

I imagine it'll improve; these things tend to be cyclic, and I am writing this on Solstice Eve. Things get better as the sun shows itself more.