I’d rather not, but here we are anyway
I’m angry.
Angry that because the pandemic numbers will likely be really high for at least several months, I might not be able to see my twelve year old until next summer, at which point she will be thirteen. It’s fucked up and I can’t be the only parent struggling with pandemic parenting time.
Angry that my eyesight is blurry today. Usually it’s an allergy-symptom side effect and all my antihistamines and eye drops are not fixing it. I’m not able see almost anything that I’m not holding in my hand, at least not clearly, and the blur around everything I look at is so fucking frustrating. The words I’m typing at this moment are blurry and I hate it.
Angry that circumstances coincided in ways that mean that the car I was supposed to get eighteen months ago is so far off the table right now that it may as well never happen. The number of people able to drive in the household has steadily declined, and I want to help but I can’t drive during the day without harming myself. The car we were planning on — that I was planning on — would have removed almost every driving obstacle that my chronic illnesses give me. I’m angry that the choices made have shut doors that I don’t know how to open again. I’m angry that something I’d argue is a disability aid was pursued until it wasn’t, and I’m angry that I don’t feel like I had any agency in the situation.
Angry that the built-up stress and grief from years of trauma has collapsed on me in the form of fewer spoons each day and that my health is so compromised that I’m almost always one or two spoons away from overwhelming my physical body. I’m angry that sometimes I need to do things anyway, and then there are two or three days afterward that I may as well sleep through, because I’m not able to do anything except the most meaningless things, like scroll my Netflix queue or turn my pillow over. I usually barely make it out of bed.
Angry that the combination of the last two things means that I am going to be angry with myself and angry in general when there’s some driving that needs doing and my willingness to do it doesn’t mean I won’t do myself a fucking lot of harm. And it’s likely that those instances aren’t going to have a nice workaround that would preserve a better state of physical and mental health.
Angry that my mind is looping over and over: need to drive sometimes during the day, need to be functioning in order to drive, driving will render me non-functional afterward, driving would be much safer for me in the car I was going to have, still need to drive, don’t have that car, can’t access that car, fuck me I guess.
Angry that expressing my anger here doesn’t help much. I’m not angry nearly as often as I should be, for the sake of my mental health. I don’t know how to be angry and kind at the same time, so I pick one or the other, and usually ‘kind’ wins because I was socialized female and I don’t feel comfortable just being fucking angry.
Angry enough about my blurred vision that I am bringing it up again. FUCK whatever reaction or symptom trigger is causing it.
Angry that feeling my anger is a symptom trigger all by itself and I am currently experiencing a hot flash and a headache and some mild tachycardia just because I am angry and allowing myself to feel some of it.
Angry about my hair because I don’t fucking know what to do with it. A professional haircut requires about 40 minutes of driving both ways and my favorite hair cutting person does not cut hair after dark because the shop is closed at that point. I’ve tried to fuck with it and I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know what I want, which also means that anyone offering to help me can’t help because I don’t know what I want and therefore can’t ask for it. Angry that I’m just a fraction too vain for a full pandemic head-shave.
Angry that I want to work on my business logistics and it’s going to take me months to do it because I get brain-tired so quickly. Angry that everywhere I look, I see NO. No to that. No to that too. Double no. Fuck you, no. NO.
Angry that staying up late is the only thing that feels like it’s entirely my choice, but staying up as late as I’d like to means that I’m a useless pile of nope the next day. I don’t actually want to feel tired, headachy, and cranky. And I know it’s not really because I stay up late, it’s because Everything Is Too Headache.
Angry that the way my body and brain manage my stress and grief levels is to sabotage my shoulder joints and neck and back muscles, so I can expect that at least one arm will pop out of its socket and I’ll have stupid high pain levels every couple of days. Unless I keep as calm as possible and try very hard not to look at the things that tend to drown me. Which is, you know, pretty much impossible to keep up for any length of time longer than a few days. Also, guess what I need for almost any self-soothing activity? MY FUCKING ARMS TO WORK. Can’t keyboard, can’t mouse, can’t hold a book, can’t knit, can’t lever myself off the bed. The only thing worse than a dislocated shoulder is dislocating it more.
How is it the middle of September already? FUCK. Where did my year go? How long have I been in here trying to wait out a plague? What else will I need to sacrifice? What other situations will I find myself in because of other peoples’ choices? WHY ARE PEOPLE.
I’m still angry but it seems repetitive to continue talking about why, because it would be repetitive, see above for an explanation of my current brain loop.
Fuck.
featured image is a comic by Effin Birds
