*** Trigger Warning ****
The swirling thoughts are a whirling dervish of worry. Calgon take me away. If only a bubble bath could solve problems long term instead of temporarily pushing them away.
As much as I’m an open book, I also keep things close to the vest. I’m odd about what I share and what I push down/bottle up. Some ‘stuff’ is happening again that makes me want to scream from the rooftops but I stop short in these are not my stories to tell. And/or I think no one cares to listen to you whine Jilly. Or worse, I believe my ‘stuff’ is not important since others have situations worse than mine. Damn that part of therapy didn’t take. My feelings are second class citizens.
I did a little writing exercise. Old school pen and paper. I timestamped the date March 16, 2020. That was the Monday after Spring Break where I returned from a week of vacation to work from home. Yep, I got the call, don’t come back until this blows over. The ‘this’ was Covid-19 and the virus is still blowing us down.
A lifetime of “stuff” has occurred over this past 17 months. Mind boggling actually. My list beings simply with that date. No real form or fashion, only bullet points of trauma. Ya, I said trauma. And these are things on my list that do not directly impact me. But being witness is sometimes as traumatic. My list contains an in memorandum section. Jesus weeps, the list is long.
I only put people I knew in real life, either by work, school, community. I included children of friends, co-workers, family members. Yep I lost a brother during Covid and a cousin. My brother was in his late 70s, in a nursing home, had dementia among other ailments. They still have his cause of death as the Rona despite several of the family thinking he had so much other health woes going on that cause of death should be changed. My cousin was quite tragic in that hers was not by natural causes. In fact, three people I know besides her died by suicide in that timespan.
For the last 4 days, I have been sitting here with knots in my stomach. Twisted gut syndrome I call it and pretty sure it is mentally induced. All the tests are negative so this has to be emotions manifesting as physical pain. I have been worried about my Pony Boy. I told B something was up but I didn’t know what. Ever since the dust up on Christmas Eve we’ve been out of sync. But then things returned to normal. People only worry about the ones who aren’t smiling. We never worry about the gregarious. And my boy is a jokester. Our son-shine. Mister happy-go-lucky. Sweetest kid ever.
He basically had a breakdown for reasons that shall remain locked up tight. He showed up at my door in the middle of the day. Told me all about it without too many specifics. He’s my twinkie and he also bottled up too much ‘stuff’ until the bad had no place to go but out.
Now I worry that he could one day soon be on my list, without intervention, that thankfully he is getting. Or so he says he is getting. I pray that what doesn’t kill him makes him stronger. That he believes tomorrow will be better. That everything is eventual and things will change. That this too shall pass.
As always, more to come.
J-Dub's Grin and Bear It 