Normal. Abby Normal.
There is nothing normal about anything anymore. Not that normal ever meant much in the House of Chaos:
But even by our abnormal standards of normal, things are whack.
Complete a thought? Nope.
Maintain focus long enough to attempt to complete a thought? Nope.
Wrangle the wet and angry squirrels in my head to all dash in the same direction, in hopes the resultant whoooosh of a breeze might blow focus back into gear so a thought has a prayer of being completed? Not a chance in hell.
I don’t think I’ve ever been quite this scatterbrained. Newborn parent who isn’t sleeping isn’t scatterbrained, that’s sleep deprivation torture and I believe the Geneva Convention is firmly against that sort of thing. But this new scatterbrained nonsense? Whack.
Getting the squirrels all together in hopes of completing a thought isn’t happening, a coherent blog post won’t either. Instead all I have is random brain bits wetly slapping onto the desk in hopes I acknowledge them. In fact, it appears I have random brain bits moistly decorating most surfaces in my house. Watch where you sit.
I have always been the chief hunter and gatherer of consumables and random sundries. A little ‘Rona hasn’t changed that role, only now I’m sporting a fashionable face mask and rubber gloves. Or rather, I’m shopping as fast as I can before I become entirely hypoxic, the skin on my hands sloughing off under the gloves as I sweat profusely trying to breathe through multiple layers of fabric, and attempting to keep the brain bits from littering the path behind me; I can’t be responsible for people getting injured playing Slip ‘N Slide on my grey matter. I might as well be shopping without my glasses for as well as I’m able to concentrate. What? You can concentrate without your glasses on? What’s that like? So now when I venture out to replenish Old Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard what used to be a reasonably short errand has become a multi-hour event, with WASHING THE GROCERIES at the finish line. Yes, complete with a table set up in the garage with me still in gloves, wiping down boxes and bags and even the bananas (to the great amusement of my dirty minded and easily entertained sons) with Clorox wipes, yelling that only the stuff on the table is ready to go into the house if you ask me one more damned time if the bagged stuff on the cement floor is ready I swear I will stuff a wipe in one ear and pull it out the other because you obviously have nothing between them if I have to repeat that over and over and oh my god over. And then the putting away and the showering and the ritual burning of the clothing. Makes for a long day.
I’m so tired. Emotionally and mentally knockered. We’ve been out of school since March 14 and learned on Friday that we’re finishing the school year with remote learning, not to return to the building this school year. At least now we know and can plan somewhat. Remote teaching middle school band wasn’t on my 2020 bingo card.
Sleeping? Yep. Staying asleep? Sometimes. Do I know what day it is at any given moment? Not always. I considered Day of the Week underpants, but I’ve gained so much weight from stress that I hesitate to buy anything. Then again, I could always repurpose them as curtains later. Scarlett O’Hara in reverse.
I’ve always had projects littering my to-do lists, to the point that I had to create different lists of things I wanted to do so my daily lists weren’t loaded down with guilt-inducing items that had a snowball’s chance of getting done. Now the time is available to actually do some of those projects, and…the squirrels ran off, but not before they peed all over the project lists. The ink is all blurry now; I don’t remember wanting to gnaw the doorknob bamboozlers. No concentration, no motivation, no words-that-end-in-ion. The exception (hey, another -ion word!) is getting out and digging in the dirt; spring cleanup is the earliest it’s ever been. An upside of everything shutting down with a resounding SLAM is that Tom’s busy season suddenly isn’t busy and he’s not traveling. The seeds I started a few weeks ago are twee little seedlings in starter pods, next week I’ll move them to larger planting pots, and sometime late next month I’ll move them to their long-term home in the garden boxes I’m putting in the backyard. Three watering troughs, soon to be drilled and cleaned and spray painted, destined for the part of the yard that has hideous drainage, to act as a pseudo fence while growing veggies.
Thank god for group chats, the end.
I had such hope for a little bit of normal coming our way. Andy was accepted to his college of choice for this fall, and it looked as though things might finally work in his favor for a change. My teaching position was approved to become full-time. Tom returned to a career he loved, that he was so successful at. So many positive changes after so many years of struggle. And then the normal became not so normal.
Get me outta here.