It has been quite a while since I posted anything here. I wanted to write and post, but I didn’t feel like I had anything to say, or at least I wasn’t ready to do the work required to say it. For me to write something, I need to wrestle with it a bit (or a lot) and make sure it speaks the truth I want to share, but I also need to make sure I have wrestled with that truth myself. And I guess I just didn’t want to do that work over the last few months.
But, here I am, ready again to give people things to read that they never asked for and never knew they needed (they probably don’t). And so, let me catch you up a bit. I shared quite a bit last year about the anxiety that took hold during the early months of the pandemic, and of the things I was doing to try to deal with it.
Finally last fall, I went to my doctor and said I needed help. He started me on a low dose anti-anxiety med. I also reached out to a few therapists and found one that I could meet with. I realized that I simply could not face this stuff alone. And so, I started taking meds and doing virtual visits with my therapist. That was not an easy thing to admit, but one of the best things I have ever done.
During those first several weeks, I became aware of a couple of things. First, when I started looking at all of the stress and difficulties that we had been dealing with in the months (and years) leading up to Covid, it is no wonder that I went down such a dark hole. I have always believed that grief and stress are cumulative, and if we don’t take the time to deal with them, they just keep coming back with every new stressor or loss. I had obviously not taken care of business.
The second thing that became so clear is how desperately I needed someone to process these things with, to get them out of my head and my heart and unpack the meanings and the effects. I think we all need some person to whom we can unburden our souls and unpack our crap (that is the clinical term) and figure out what is worth fixing and what needs to be left behind.
Oh, and the other thing that happened during Covid was that I refused to get a haircut. I let one daughter buzz it off last summer, and then did not get it cut again until 2 weeks ago. I didn’t want anyone that close to my face until I was safely vaccinated (I am), but I also wanted to see how I would look with long hair. By the time I went in, it was about 6 inches long and everyone was calling me a hippy. I think they thought that might bother me….it didn’t. It is still pretty long. Maybe that is the new, post-Covid me.
So, now that I am in a much better place, I am going to start writing again. I hope you will stop by and check it out, and if you think it is worth it, feel free to share. Peace.