Home safe home
I’m a big fan of these stay at home orders. obviously because it helps slow the spread of the virus. Of course. OF COURSE. That’s what is important and what matters. but there are other more personal, selfish reasons too.
Stay at home orders really speak to my introverted tendencies, my fondness for avoiding people, crowds, and generally just “hanging out.” There is a lot less small talk required of me, the joy this brings me cannot be underestimated. Also, I am incredibly lazy and so very good at being incredibly lazy. It’s where I truly shine. So yay!
But there is more that lingers, back in the shadows, a ghost hiding in the dark. I had a really tough struggle with panic disorder and agoraphobia when I was younger. I’ve come so far from it all that it almost seems like it happened to a different person, not to me. But being at home all this time has been so strange. it feels like all those millions of tiny little circuits in me that went black are starting to light up again.
So when these states start talking about opening back up, the anxiety and panic grows, threatening to overwhelm me. Am I just worried about the increase in infections and deaths? Or is it more? Are those malfunctioning circuits starting to pull me back under?
Having to go out now makes me very anxious. I get panicky when people get too close to me. they’re not six feet away! SIX FEET! Stay back! my heart starts racing and it gets hard to breathe. But I’m wearing a mask, of course it’s harder to breathe under it, you big baby. But then I think “I just need to get back home. It will all be fine then. Just. Get. Home.” What makes it especially tough is that it’s true! It’s true. Home is literally the safest place right now. there is a real, live, actual threat, not some imagined one in my defective brain. on a higher level of course I know the difference, but go deeper, and there is no difference. Staying at home and never leaving is the only safe way to live anymore. Virus, no virus, doesn’t matter.
I’m a mom now and I’ve got two boys to worry about. So it’ll be fine. I will be fine. We will be fine.