3.16.20 - #corona2020 II

I realized, only recently, how poorly I do with internal anxiety
There’s a train, running away, in my head sometimes
If I try, stay busy, maybe the brakes may recover before
I reach the end of the bridge, the end of the world

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First full real day of what seems like a real, new normal. Not that we would go out if we could, ‘cause we can’t afford it, but because this illness is a bad rollercoaster ride. We’re not sure if J and D have it, since there weren’t testing kits last week. They’re supposed to call the Georgia Board of Health or something, go through a questionnaire, to even qualify for a test. Right now we’re operating under a 14-day quarantine diagnosed as pneumonia for J, and a 5-day quarantine diagnosed as bronchitis for D. I feel fine, but there’s a tension in the air. We’re faced with the added anxieties of having nothing better to do than reflect on our own past terrors and nightmares. While we wait on referrals for therapists to work through the overloaded for-profit under-prepared American Health Care nightmare, the news outside gets worse and the future darkens a little.

So I went to the gym anyway. I need something besides working my way through the feedback notes on Gravity’s Reach in preparation for a May Writer’s Conference that likely could be cancelled. I’ve been working on the Robin Hood homage, and that’s been more fun. I also have to check grades, put together plans for next week (both planning for online or in-class delivery), and take care of three hurting people.

”We’re broken, but we’re not damaged goods.”

”We do the best we can.”

At least one thing I can pull, a few moments with the dog in the backyard watching her play before she spent hours by my side while I wrote.

That’s the career I want, where I can spend my days giving head scratches while writing the next story.

3.15.20 - #corona2020

Maybe we’re all going a little mad at the idea
Plucked straight out an eighties sci-fi novel
Empty shelved truths are stranger fictions
When a virus can spread at the worst of times
Bringing people to whimpers of shared terror
When nightmares awaken our lesser demons

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Funny, today was my most productive day writing, in a while. Meanwhile, outside our little quarantine zone, seems like the hubcaps are coming off, if not the wheels. The shelves were emptied at the bigger stores. Toilet paper has become a meme in our ironic pessimistic chuckle towards self-destruction. None of us can go to work tomorrow, so we’re all stuck here another week. Two with doctors notes for self-quarantine (even though neither got tested because there were no kits), and two because their schools closed for a week. We’re trying to keep each other sane, co-existing and being bored. For me, it’s easy. For the girls, who are dealing with the traumas of their past head-on while the world seems to be imploding outside, it’s been rough.

I don’t know what I can say sometimes that’ll make them feel better, what’ll help. I’ve learned that if I just sit there and say I’ll listen, sometimes that helps. Maybe it just helps us all, to not be miserable alone, in the dark. Just to know that someone else is sitting there, next to you.

Now I’m gonna go set next to my spouse and let her cry on my shoulder. Love those around you, y’all.

2.13.20

It’s been a while but that’s what happens when the 8-to-5 puts you in a panic attack that has you screaming for your wife to call 911 because you’re sure you’re dying and the only way to keep living is to not say the words-
“I don’t exist.”
When you’re that fragile and the thought of going back into a room to do the same job the next day makes you wonder if it isn’t worth it to continue existing, that maybe it’s better if your heart did give out-
”Something has to change.”
It can’t be more of the same, this career isn’t for me anymore. Maybe it’s an impossible job. We lose teachers midway through the year, they just walk out the door and don’t come back and I stay, thinking-
”Why am I envious?”
So it’s time. I’ve never been more scared, anxious, or afraid of what’s to come because I simply don’t know where I belong in the working world. I want to write, I know that, and I work daily, but it’s still just a dream-
”What do I do now?”
Job applications are going in for things outside my current career, things I think I can do and do well. It’ll take time for things to fall into place and thank the universe for my blessed wife who is endlessly supportive-
”We’ll figure it out together.”
I know I’m not the only one and it hurts. My mentor went to the hospital thinking he had a heart attack, it was anxiety as well. Everyone is afraid of what is going to happen day in and day out and that’s no way to work-
”This is happening everywhere.”
How do we sound the alarm, that something is seriously wrong with schools, students, and the relationships between parents, administrators, and teachers? No one listens and it seems like it can only get worse-
”Until the pendulum swings.”
I know what I think the answers are, and I firmly believe education is the most important career anyone can pursue, but at the same time, one of my former kids told me I’m why she’s going into teaching-
”Oh God no, don’t do that.”
I’ve got former students, now in college, that come by because they’re working through serious trauma and somehow this household is a safe space for them. My wife, a former victim of abuse, is amazing-
”We’ll get through this.”
To fix education? We’d need a drastic change of understanding. The popular mentality is to provide excellent customer service like we’re selling a Buick or a set of stainless steel knives.
”The customer is not always right.”
But who dares to tell the people in charge that education is like healthcare. There’s going to be hard news that has to be told. Sometimes the medicine is brutal, and sometimes the patients don’t make it-
”But the truth is harder than lies.”
Until that realization takes hold nationwide, education will be a broken system, with solutions that only break it further by treating the symptoms and not the cause because we can’t say things like-
”You have to be a better parent.”
”You have to say no.”
”You have to let consequences play out.”
But who wants to hear that? I want to say it because it’s what needs to be said, not because it’s easy, but because it’s right and true and the more we placate, the worse things get.
”I just want to see you succeed.”
And I just want to succeed but I don’t think I can do it here. The question is where, how, when? And will I make it long enough to find that joy again?
”The hard phone calls tomorrow.”
One to a parent to own my mistakes, one to a therapist to set up an appointment. And one to a psychiatrist to start attacking this lifelong anxiety and sadness that I can’t seem to shake free from.
”It’s time to change, and that starts with me.”
If I can’t change the world, I can at least try to change me. There’s a Writer’s Conference in May to prep for. At least I’ll start putting myself out there. It’s time to come out of that cocoon of anonymity and find out-
”Do I have anything to offer?”