Love-Hate
I have a love-hate relationship with this whole Stay-at-Home, living in The Upside Down thing.
On certain days of the week (that don’t correspond to real life days of the week at all), I am happy and content. I sleep well, I wake up and exercise, feel refreshed after a shower, and carry on with my day with a little pep in my step.
Sometimes I remind myself that I used to long for days like this… nowhere to go, nowhere to be, no errands, no appointments, and a clean calendar. The freedom from everyday life is wonderful – and we walk around with giant smiles like in the Lego Movie.
On these Love Days, the coffee tastes better, the sun shines perfectly, and I am super productive with work. The kids get their schoolwork done and I am motivated and creative and easily engage with the people I live with. Dinner is delicious and we laugh and enjoy family time after dinner and wonder how we could ever go back to our old lives.
On other days – the Hate Days (that also are annoyingly unpredictable and don’t really correspond to real life days) – I am anything but content. I feel like I live in a den of trolls. On those days, I do not feel rested. I feel angry or overwhelmed or tired or wanting time alone. Sometimes the people I live with are also grumpy. Or too talkative. Talkative is the worst. Silence is golden, let me tell you. On those days, there are raised voices and possibly some tears shed before noon. We start to resent each other for things like breathing. Have you seriously always been that loud when you exhale?
On those days, I don’t want to talk or answer questions or be productive, but I feel guilty for not talking or being productive or doing the things that could be done when I have time to do them. It’s a total paradox. What if I look back on this time and regret not getting those pictures framed or my shoes cleaned out? What if I don’t make that sourdough bread that I bought the ingredients for? And what if I never find the matches to the socks that are all over the house?
Those are the days when I want to eat nachos for breakfast and popcorn for lunch and have candy for dinner because I just cannot get satisfied and I would rather rummage the cabinets and research Carole Baskin than be productive. And the wine. How early is too early? What if you thought it was Saturday but it’s really Tuesday? Does that matter? And if you skip the wine how much ice cream is too much ice cream? Is too much even a thing while we are in the Upside Down?
On the Hate Days, it feels heavy and hard and like I am mad at something but not sure what. Either I am too old or it’s the virus or whatever but, on those days, I have no more strength to put on a happy face. Instead I put on my real face and sometimes it just ain’t pretty.
So I guess this is just how you do a pandemic.
Around and around and up and down and back again. Day after day after day.
If I think about the troll in The Three Billy Goats Gruff, the troll had two enemies.
One was change.
And the other greed.
I guess fairy tales are not just for kids.