Tag: midlife

Covid 19

And then I got it…twice.

meanderingthroughmidlife

I made it through the pandemic without getting Covid. I had all the boosters available to me, including one last September. I carried hand sanitizer and wipes. I avoided crowds.

But last October, I had Depeche Mode tickets. DM has provided the soundtrack of my life. I’ve seen them before, three times, albeit twenty-something years ago. But learning about Andy Fletcher’s death made me beg my hubby for tickets. I didn’t care how much they were, because let’s be honest. Memento Mori may very well be their last tour. And tonight is the finale in Cologne, Germany. Gee, I’d give anything to be there. But I digress.

My friend and I hopped on the train to NYC on that exceedingly warm October night. For three hours I stood, sang, and danced with thousands of other fifty-somethings like me. MSG was filled with voices singing each lyric while music pulsed beneath our feet and through our bodies. I hadn’t felt so alive in so long that I didn’t want it to end. The energy was palpable, and I was twenty-three again.

Until three days later when I was suddenly achy. I was a bit nauseous. My throat was sore. So I took one test, then two. The two pink lines showed up before the required fifteen-minute wait time.

I was terrified and ran to Urgent Care. Their rapid test came back negative. I called my GP to let her know about the home tests and ask for Paxlovid. And then came the rapid-fire decisions one makes when having Covid. Where to isolate. Notify work. Let my friends and co-workers I had been in contact with know I could have passed it on. Figure out who would take care of the dog, the cats, our teenager, my hubby. Write work plans. Order groceries and all the other things one does when one feels they are the household CEO. I had to return to Urgent Care for a PCR test for work. That came back positive…

As the CDC suggested, I shut the door on the world for five days. At first, I was restless. Then I was tired. Next, I binged some Netflix series, read a bit, colored in my mandala coloring book, and doom scrolled through the hours. By about day three, I was content. My world had stopped and I could take a breath. I almost didn’t want to come out. Day four was cleaning day. On day five I emerged from my cocoon, happy to be with my family again. Day seven, I tested negative. No more Paxlovid iron taste in the back of my mouth, just the plastic air from the K95 mask.

No one else in my house got Covid.

I figured I had won.

Until our son got it for Christmas. And my hubby got it on Valentine’s Day. And despite spending five days on the living room couch, I got it a second time.

The insurance company denied my request for Paxlovid, despite this time I was wheezing so bad that I could hardly talk. It took two days, some threats, and two hours on the phone to get the script. A work friend suggested I come in masked since I was fever free. I thought they were joking and stayed home, blowing through most of my sick time.

No one seemed to care that I could be contagious.

Who gets Covid twice in four months? I did.

Work is a cesspool of germs. And the protocols once offered don’t exist anymore. There isn’t any hand sanitizer or wipes available in the classrooms. And so many kids come to school sick. Worse, some people admit that they don’t bother testing their kiddos anymore, I mean the pandemic “ended” years ago, right?

Then three weeks after having Covid, my husband had a cardiac event. We spent some time in an emergency room. Did you know that Covid can affect your heart muscle?

But Covid’s over, right?

My favorite track on Memento Mori is “People are Good.” “Keep telling myself that people are good. Whisper it under my breath. So I don’t forget.”

I hope we do a better job of caring for one another. Less “me”, and more “we”.

Overweight and Loathing It

Screw You Google!

meanderingthroughmidlife

It finally happened. Google’s algorithms connected my Googling with my shopping, and the results stunned me. Vera Bradley had emailed a coupon, one too hard to resist. So, I started to peruse the latest patterns and styles. When I clicked through to see what the bag might look like, something like this popped up.

Gone were the svelte models swinging their bags over their shoulder with a look in their eye that said they had it all. Now the model, who has a normal body, is swinging the bag by her knees.

Now don’t get me wrong. This model is beautiful.

It’s just that I don’t see myself as begin overweight. The “o” word lurks behind me in the shadow of my consciousness. But I have struggled with my weight for most of my life, especially since we came out of the pandemic and into the endemic. Lately I have realized that my safety cushion is a relic from a traumatic childhood. And it is going to take more than just dieting and working out to get rid of it, especially since my cortisol levels must be sky high for fear of Covid 19. Not to mention my stress levels….ugh.

I’m working on it. And I have made a promise to be gentle with myself. It’s been quite a year.

But seeing heavier models whenever I look online for clothes has made me stop shopping. I prefer to keep my oversized shirts and pants.

Seeing a model who looks more like me felt like an invasion of privacy. Was Google sending Vera Bradley messages about my weight? Who else were they sharing my “how to lose weight after 50” searches?

Weight challenges are personal. But I felt that suddenly my issue had become public property. I know that privacy doesn’t exist on the internet, yet this felt like a purposeful violation.

Did I say I stopped shopping for clothes online?

Which means that Google has inadvertently done the opposite of what advertisers expected.

That’s ironic, isn’t it?

Namaste

Uncategorized

Falling into the Flow

meanderingthroughmidlife

It’s been nearly sixteen years since I dared called myself a “fledgling writer”.  It used to be that I could sit down and verbal vomit onto the screen a complete story.  I was a pantser.  But now, writing is a bit more tricky.

Which is why I am turning back toward reading to jump start my writing.  But reading isn’t always easy these days either.  There is the required reading for work, the rereading of texts for work, and the endless emails, texts, tweets, and posts.  But it surprised me how challenging it can be to fall into the flow of a novel.

I will put the book by the bedside, intending to spend a chunk of time reading before sleeping.  Instead, I will spend a chunk of time on social media, checking out the latest news stories, and be half asleep by the time I put down the ipad/phone and pick up the novel.

Why is that?  I know that Nicholas Carr’s THE SHALLOWS tries to explain that Google just might be “making us stupid” by encouraging us to skim and scan, to not read.  But it frustrates me that when I think I want to sit down to read, I struggle.

Last summer I tried a new approach.  I picked up a book that I loved as a teenager: Anne Mc Caffrey’s Dragonflight.  For a week, I fell in love with reading again, yearning for the extra free moments when I could slip into the world of Pern and ride a dragon alongside Lessa in my imagination.  And it was interesting how things that did not stand out for me as a thirteen-year old reader, did as a midlife mommy.

More importantly, I felt a sense of accomplishment.  I had fallen into the narrative’s flow and allowed myself to experience  the story.  For a little while, I had forgotten all the day to day challenges.  Reading in the flow was cathartic!

And all it took was carving out some time, choosing the right book, and slowing down.  Slowing down might have been the magic ingredient in the fairy dust that transported me to Pern.

It was a healing experience.

Upon finishing Dragonflight, I felt compelled to research about Mc Caffrey’s life and her inspiration.  Then I marveled at how dragons are once again an important part of our culture.  And at last, the single sandy grain of a story began to form in my head.

Reading is breathing for a writer.  And I am still working on falling into the flow of others narratives.  But when it happens, it’s extraordinary.

JMonell

 

Uncategorized

A Mommy Moment With BTS Night

meanderingthroughmidlife

September is always chaotic in our home.  It amazes me how our family accelerates the pace of life from the hazy days of summer crawl to the all out sprint of BTS.  Suddenly, bedtime has to be adjusted to accommodate an early morning wake-up.  School forms need to be filled out and signed. Sports uniforms have to be ordered. Schedules have to be coordinated.  And I am in a mad dash to do all the summer cleaning I swore I would do, but didn’t.

The Tuesday after Labor Day is my New Year’s Day too.

And I have two BTS nights.

The second one requires me to rush home, pick up Munchkin, provide some sort of meal,  hug DH with a ‘hello” then rush back out usually within an hour of getting in the house.  I relish BTS night because I want to meet the Munchkin’s teacher and hear about what he will be doing.  Every year I can predict how it is going to go just from quality of the presentation and the expression on the teacher’s face.

Sometimes, the Munchkin’s teacher doesn’t want to entertain me.  It can be threatening to know that your client has the same job as you, knows the lingo, and can see through smoke and mirrors.  There have been years when I felt the hesitation in the handshake, or could imagine the teacher talking in the faculty room…”Watch out! Mom’s a teacher.”  I understand.  It has happened to me too.

The best BTS nights have been the ones when I walk into the classroom and know the year will be great.  I can feel the care that was put into making the room feel like home.  And it is organized.  Reading in one corner.  Math manipulatives in another.  Science in the back.  Social studies in the front.   I love it when I leave and know I will be working with Munchkin’s teacher.

But, my anxiety does rise like icy water when I walk into a room full of parents and I am the oldest one squeezing into a little kid seat.

You see, BTS night is also the time when the parents check each other out.  A glimpse around the room can be very revealing.  There have been moments when I swear I feel the other women’s gazes upon my back and I can hear them ask “Just how old was she when she had her child?” in their heads like some sick yummy mommy telepathy.

Being an “older” mom makes some ask why you waited so long, or wonder if you couldn’t find Mr. Right “on time”.   Then some will look around or listen to hear if I have an older child, almost as if this one was an “oops”.

I am being scoped out on the battlefield of the mommy wars.

And I know it.

As the class parents (moms) stand up and talk about giving money for class parties, and getting involved, I feel a bit sick.  They smile and bounce like they’re walking down some runway not standing in the front of a fifty-year old classroom.  Sometimes they giggle.  Sometimes they growl…”Of course you will join PTO!”  “Give us your name, numbers, email…rank and file too.”

Honestly, I feel bad.  I work.  Halloween parties and parades are great, but I only get so much personal time in a year, so reading during Read Across America, supervising holiday parties, or helping organize graduation are not options for me.  And PTO after a full day of work, family, grading, lesson planning, cooking, and…. it’s just not going to happen.  This doesn’t mean I don’t care.

And I should not also feel like a second- class citizen.

It amazes me how quick people are to judge one another.  My middle age is teaching me to take a step back, and breathe, before allowing those thoughts to consume me.  One would think I’d be beyond caring what other people presume.  But it is still a struggle at times.

Sometimes, when I see other moms, I wish we had children when I was younger.   It’s too easy to wonder what life would have been like if only… Not that I regret my choices.  There is a reason why things have happened in the time that they did.

This year I looked about the room and tried to stay present.  Munchkin is growing much too fast.  When I blink, I wonder what I missed.  Now I try to live moment by moment and let go of Regret.

JMonell