One of Those Quarantine Days

I stepped in poop this morning before I could make it to the coffee maker.

If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about this Monday, then let me also say that I didn’t realize I’d stepped in poop until I’d made it to said coffee maker a solid six feet away from where it had been left by our new puppy *probably* last night. As I’m realizing this and dying a little, I look up to see my four year old with his pants dropped in our backyard peeing towards the apartment complex that’s behind our house, even though I’ve made it quite clear that if you’re going to pee outside you must do it towards our house and behind the trampoline. But we are given a strict budget of patient words before 8AM, aren’t we? And I had already spent mine. So I left him to shock the neighbors and instead hobbled out to the garage where I could curse privately and use very precious lysol and paper towels to take care of what my pet can’t learn from my son should be done on the lawn.

And this is how I knew it was going to be one of those quarantine days. Are you having these, too? The real wild cards thrown into an otherwise alright reality? Someone sent me the screenshot of a tweet by @itsDanSheehan yesterday that said: “The quarantine state of mind is having 3 solid days where you feel pretty well adjusted, followed by a sudden, unexpected dip into what we call ‘the hell zone.’ The hell zone is an anxious, semi-agitated state where you’re just sort ‘off’ for the whole day and time flows like you’re wading through chili and your hell zone will NEVER sync up with other people’s hell zones and that’ll always make you feel weird and stressed out.”

AMEN, DAN. What a twilight zone this is, where on Thursday I can text my friends that I am scraping for sanity on a walk by myself because I have had to use unprecedented will power to stop three panic attacks that day in order to jump on a Zoom call while preparing my kid’s third full plate of food that will sit next to the other two full plates while he survives only on a diet of beef jerky. “I can’t get a good breath,” I’ll say, “I am desperately missing having something to look forward to.” Oddly and simultaneously, I’m exhausted by the thought of having anything to look forward to because this whole thing is making me so tired. They respond with sympathy, practical ideas for self-care, and well-timed humor. But they’re not in it.

I know this because I won’t be in it with the one who will carry the torch of fear and irritability for the whole group tomorrow like a crotchety martyr. Meanwhile, I’ll wake to lean into the love and creativity in my heart instead of the crap in my toes and I’ll have forgotten, briefly, that days like today are waiting in my deck to make their appearance again.

So here I am validating that, as if things couldn’t be lonelier in isolation, at least for me and someone named Dan, it seems that even our funky days must be navigated by ourselves. But there’s at least some comfort in knowing that other folks are experiencing this phenomenon. Together, Though Apart—isn’t that what all the precious window signs crafted by bored baby hands have been telling us? It’s on brand.

What I’m trying to remember is that, if a day like this is going to surface, I usually know by 9AM. So by 9AM I can know whether or not I need to be extra gentle with me today.

No added guilt for Fortnite hours and beef jerky brunches. No self-chastising about the list that won’t get made or checked. No emails that start with “sorry,” just emails that start with “thank you.” Maybe a little extra space when mouth noises get to be too much and the willingness to be honest with my people that tomorrow likely won’t be, but today is.

I would say if you’re having one of those days then be gentle with you, but you’re likely not since I am. So let it serve as a credit for next time when I’ll no longer be able to relate.

Permission to be gentle, you. Permission to be gentle, me.