Triggers in the Time of Coronavirus

I thought I had hit the lowest point of my emotional state last week, but apparently, I hadn't quite hit the bottom. At this point, I'm going to take that as a positive because even after another tough emotional week, I still don't think I've hit bottom. After last week's meltdown, I spent most of the past week trying to figure out a plan for survival that would minimize all downsides and risks. The result of that quest was an epic meltdown, because it was a fool's errand. The level of uncertainty we are all facing on a daily basis, plus the several layers of uncertainty we are experiencing personally as a family is too much. 

I had several incredibly disappointing conversations with people this week, one being with my therapist, where nobody could provide me comfort and where I felt like screaming at the person. My biggest trigger right now is anyone claiming to have absolute facts. I have zero tolerance for anyone that isn't willing to acknowledge that nothing is certain. ZERO. I've never had more clarity about people in my life than I do now. Someone recently posted the quote from Princess Bride by William Goulding, "Life is pain, Princess. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something." 

So right now, I feel like a lot of people are selling something. Some are actually selling something for their jobs. When the selling is very clear, I am not triggered. I get it, you are making ends meet and part of it is showing that things are okay and being positive. I understand that being brutally honest isn't going to help you with your sale, so I am not triggered. I respect the hustle. 

Others are selling political ideas. These trigger me the most, because it seems like such an effed up time to try to push an agenda. Even the agendas that I agree with/care about trigger me. Don't try to influence my already beleaguered mind with more stuff right now. And generally, when will people realize that nobody will ever change their mind about politics through an angry post or, frankly, any political post on social media? All it does is either preach to the choir or anger people. 

And I'm going to guess that the rest of the people that are so certain about everything are literally trying to sell comfort to themselves. I guess I can't blame you if this is what you are doing. Everyone is hurting right now, and everyone has a different way of handling it. 

So I think the lesson for me this week is that having clarity on my triggers is important.That I can surround myself by those people that provide me the comfort that I am looking for. That what I find comfort in right now are facts, honest uncertainty, writing, video games and humor. That once I establish all of those things for myself, I can maybe have more patience and tolerance for other's coping mechanisms. I also hope that I can find my faith again. I've started that process by just realizing that trying to solve the unsolvable puzzle is exhausting and makes me crazy and a terrible version of myself and that maybe for the next week I will try not solving it and that trying not to solve it isn't lazy but actually probably the smart thing to do. If I give up the struggle for just a week, the world can't collapse more than it already has, right?  (Please don't answer that). 

So, my goal for this week is to throw caution to the wind (while still observing all of the medical guidelines and not leaving the apt because I'm not a monster), not think about the dire circumstances we are in and try to just find some joy each day.  Let go and let God.  Wish me luck. 

A Meltdown with a Side of Random Thoughts in the Time of La Cuarentena

Most of my meltdowns have occurred in an orderly fashion, in the shower, after putting the kids to bed and before putting on a brave and smiling face for dinner with Ryan and our nanny. 

If you haven't already noticed, I like order, or as my sister-in-law once mentioned during one of our commune summers, "you run a tight ship."  I do indeed! One positive aspect about social distancing is that I have much more control over the ship. Sadly, for any other control freaks out there, that additional control over the ship is VASTLY outweighed by the utter lack of control ANYONE seems to have over Coronavirus. So, my crew may be running as well as possible, but it doesn't matter one bit if the sea we are sailing is getting ready to overtake the ship at any second. 

This realization plus a trigger set me off my usual composure in the middle of a work day this week. I had a crying meltdown, one that had been brewing for a few weeks of putting on a brave face, even for myself. I vented to Ryan for a few minutes before his next work call and then huddled on the floor of our bathroom to call my bestie out in LA. As she always does, she talked me off the ledge and as I was calming down, I get a knock from an urgent Ryan who needed to use the restroom.  I sauntered into our room, still crying, scratching my head, walking to the window, still talking to her when I realize that I am on camera on Ryan's computer.  I quickly ran away and was so humiliated that my worst self may have just been caught on camera and seen by Ryan's colleagues or clients. 

Luckily, Ryan had just failed to exit the call and he swears that the Zoom room was empty.  If any of you see me on Reddit under Zoom fails, please let me know. I would be the girl with a somewhat business on top shirt, black workout shorts on bottom, dirty hair, crying into a tissue, unceremoniously scratching her head while whimpering on the phone and looking out the window. CAN'T A GIRL HAVE A COVID MELTDOWN WITHOUT IT BEING ACCIDENTALLY BROADCAST ON ZOOM? 

My poor friend had to reassure me that she has seen all sorts of things on Zoom and we decided that as long as nobody sees your genitals, it will all be okay. 

So, without further ado, the random thoughts from this week:

1. This may just be a familial thing or a NYC thing, but my sister and I noticed that our children have achieved the 90s Calvin Klein/Fiona Apple look during this time of Coronavirus. Super pale, under-eye bags and a defeated, far away look. I would love to know what the 90s models did to achieve this look that has naturally come upon the Real House Children of COVID NYC. Did they avoid the outside, only eat canned food and live in constant fear? 

 

2. On the other hand, the adults are channeling more of a Botero painting vibe, aka the COVID 15. 

3. I've struggled to find my humor in the last week, but one thing that never fails is the COVID roundup on Subwaycreatures instagram showing how people are protecting themselves on the subway.  This one is my favorite. 

4. Easter candy didn't stand an EFFING CHANCE this year in the GuRae household. The 100 piece bag was gone by Wednesday. There are 4 of us eating it, including a toddler who only had 10 pieces. Maybe I should amend number 2 above to the COVID 30. 

5.  Screw the parks, I would give anything to lazily sit on the stairs at the front of our building and watch people walk by. 

6.  I wish all the protesters in MI and the Mayor of Las Vegas could be flown to NYC and forced to follow a doctor around in an NYC hospital for a day.

7. Ya'll, people be dating in the time of Coronvirus and this fact makes me extremely happy. If you are single, fire up those dating apps and get (virtually) out there!  We are going to be in this scenario for awhile, so might as well make the best of it. 

8. My favorite time of day is my time with the kids. It is just so lovely to put everything on pause, including stress, and just play with and cuddle them (if they let me). They keep things interesting because they continue to change, develop and grow.  Two little wildlings growing in a tiny apartment in the middle of COVID NYC. With all of the sickness and death that we are surrounded by here, they are such an affirmation of life. 

9. Can cats sense COVID? They can certainly sense pregnancy and are better than pregnancy tests. I've seen people posting about how their cats were super affectionate with them while they were sick. If so, I'm either pregnant or I have COVID. It's definitely COVID.

10. My sister sent me this video and I watch it at least twice a day. It makes La Cuarentena less painful. 

Some More Random Thoughts in the Time of Coronavirus

1. This is not the time to assess the state of your relationship with anyone. All the rules have been thrown out and everyone is in survival mode. There is no right way to be a significant other, friend, parent, sibling or child right now. This is too hard.  If everyone in your house is driving you crazy, that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the underlying relationships. We are being forced to live in a way that is not normal or healthy. Hang in there, you will have plenty of time later to psychoanalyze everything, but it isn't useful right now. 

2. It is easier to be infected by coronavirus than it is to be bitten by a zombie. All of my mental preparations for the zombie apocalypse are useless.  

3. Doesn't it seem weird now that work always had priority over family? Work travel occurred more than family travel. Work/client dinners took priority over family dinners. Work needs usurped family needs. Family gets FaceTimed while work colleagues and clients get our actual faces. When discussions are had about the breakdown of family values, why do we not talk about how we've used technology to tie us closer to work than to family? 

4. You know that ridiculous idea that girls are less active than boys? I remember really believing it when Javi was younger and he was so active compared to everyone else who had girls at the time (most of my friends having babies at the same time had girls). I was excited to have a break from all the movement when I found out Olivia was a girl.  Well, her new nickname is "terremoto" (earthquake in Spanish). Ryan and I were looking at videos of Javi at 11 months and we were amazed at how often he would sit quietly and read books. When Olivia is awake, she is in constant motion and not content to sit quietly anywhere. I realized today that I shouldn't be surprised that both of my kids are more active than normal. Now that Ryan and I are together 24/7, I realize that if I am ever still for a long period of time, he actually checks to see if I am asleep. Apples don't fall far from the tree and I'm looking forward to all of my active adventures with my little earthquake. 

5. I wish so badly to be able to go outside again, but will I actually feel safe doing it when we get the go ahead? I think back to all the times that I would squeeze myself into a packed subway train or bus and wonder if I will ever be able to do that again. 

6. I am amazed at our resilience as a species. I consider myself more emotional than most and this week, I haven't cried. I still see the death toll numbers every day and still follow the news, but I've become resigned. Although I keep a pulse on the outside world for survival purposes, my focus has turned inward. How do I keep my children thriving as much as possible? How do I keep Javi distracted to reduce the number of times he asks us to go outside and to the beach? How do I keep my household as joyful as possible?  

7. I am grateful for imagination because it is what keeps us going. We imagine new ways of combating the virus. We imagine new ways of collaborating to help us all weather the pandemic. We imagine new ways to create and entertain during confinement. We imagine new ways of keeping our youth learning and thriving. We imagine new ways of staying connected but physically distant. We imagine the end of this trying time and a new world order. Imagination gives us hope. 

8. Unlike most people who move to NYC, I came here for Ryan and not for the city. After 12 years here, I’ve fallen in love with the city, but only by acknowledging that I always need to live close to a park and/or water. As I am currently unable to enjoy nature due to so many people not following protocol in the parks, I miss it so much and am so thankful that I can at least see nature through social media (fav account on insta right now is @theshepardswife). I am so grateful for nature, I will cherish it greatly when this is over and I am ecstatic that it is getting a break from all of our harmful ways. I hope we can do a better job at protecting it in the future. 

10 Random Thoughts in the Time of Coronavirus

1.  Ryan and I have similar stress dreams that take place at the end of a school year (high school for me, college for him) where you find out you forgot to attend a specific class for the entire year. I've run 2 marathons, graduated from college and law school, taken the NY bar exam, worked at a law-firm, stayed up for 48 hours closing a deal, quit my job with no idea what I was going to do next, dealt with 2 major family deaths and had 2 c-sections. But for some reason, in that dream, the realization that I didn't go to this high school class is DEVASTATING. Beyond devastating. What does this mean??? Is school just some torturous thing to which we subject our children? Was achievement in school so important in our specific families that we will never get over the pressure? Are we just huge school nerds and nobody else has this kind of dream? Will Coronavirus stress dreams ultimately replace the school ones? 

2. A pandemic will really help with sorting through codependency issues.There is no emotional space to obsess about managing or controlling other people's emotions, especially when you have very little management over your own. Moods shift so wildly from one moment to the next, there is zero use in investing too much energy in them. I'm trying to just ride the waves patiently and compassionately, provide comfort when I can and otherwise, keep my focus on my own well-being. The more I care for myself, the more patience and compassion I can give others. 

3.  Coronavirus cravings are even stranger than pregnancy cravings. Right now, I'm eating a tomato a day. I have tomato with nearly every meal and have even considered just chomping down on it like an apple. I've always liked tomatoes, but this is next level. I guess there are worse things I could be craving and eating daily? 

4. Ryan and I have learned a lot about each other during this time. Ryan gets really stressed about being in one room for a long time. During the week, he purposefully spends time in the living room at night because we spend most of the day in our room working. Meanwhile, I happily spend nearly 21 hours in our bedroom during the week. However, I have a sensitivity to light, which Javi shares, so we are constantly turning lights off while Ryan is constantly trying to get us to turn lights on. He calls us his bats.  

5. Maternity leave happens to be a great way to prepare for social distancing. We realized the other day that I actually get out into the rest of the apartment more than I did during my maternity leave for Liv. My maternity leave with Javi was in the dead of winter and during a bad flu year, so I never went out and at that time we lived in a shoebox. So, for me, the staying in part isn't that terrible! I've basically self-quarantined for 4 months straight twice in my life, so I'm doing okay on that front. I've already been doing Bar Method online workouts for the last 3 years as my main source of exercise, so that wasn't a big change. Maternity leave also made me more reliant on social media and the internet for social interactions, so nothing new there except I have a lot more people engaging with me now!

6. If one person in a married couple gets Coronavirus and the other one doesn't, does that tell us something about the state of their marriage or should we just assume they practice good hygiene?

7. People have WILDLY different interpretations of the facts and guidelines for staying safe. The same way you can't convince someone to change a deep-seated political opinion, you cannot change their opinion on how to follow safety guidelines. For some, as long as you stay 6 feet away from people, there is zero chance you can get the virus. For others, the allowance for walks and grocery store trips means anything that remotely resembles those two things or combining those two things in various ways is totally okay. Still others believe that not enough is known about this virus and any exposure to the outside right now involves a risk, so please don't suggest that they should go out for anything. Honestly, I would rather debate abortion right now than how to properly follow the Coronavirus guidelines. 

8. Imagine being quarantined with an elderly person with worsening dementia who asks you to explain what is going on each day because she doesn't remember and you have to fully explain the Coronavirus situation each day to both of your horrors. Nobody has it easy during this thing. 

9. Zoom work meetings are so weird because everyone tries to act like business as usual but in reality, most people are probably in the middle of some personal drama, like trying to convince their parents to be safer, or worrying about finding some sort of basic necessity, or worrying about how to deal with their kids, or worrying about a family member or friend that has or may have Coronavirus. Some days it is nice to go through the charade of acting like everything is okay, but some days it feels like an unbearable task. And you know what? This probably isn't any different during non-pandemic life and the fact that such emotional creatures with such complex social and family dynamics are able to sustain a world economy is a miracle. 

10. Toddlers have longer memories than I expected. Javi has been reminiscing about our two weeks at the beach last summer. He asks to go to the beach to play in the sand. I'm heart-broken for him, but also so grateful that we decided to make that trip. It also makes me realize how much adventures like those are important, even when they are young.

 11. Fads are incredibly hard to avoid and if Ryan and I don't watch Tiger King soon while eating a home-baked loaf of bread, we are going to be the losers of the internet. I announced to him today that I think we are too late and should just forgo it completely. He disagrees. Does it count that we are finally watching the Mandalorian?

Until next week, my friends.