Scar Tissue

“The worst type of crying wasn’t the kind everyone could see–the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived. For people like me and Echo, our souls contained more scar tissue than life.” ~ Katie McGarry, Pushing the Limits

Day 347. The days seem to get heavier and heavier.

I was fortunate last year that I was too busy at work to really feel the full blown effects of this pandemic, but the workload finally slowed down a bit during this first quarter of the year, and so the powers that be have been encouraging us to log offline early or use the vacation days that we did not use last year.

Idle time is dangerous for people with depression. I am least depressed when my days and nights are consumed with work, and when I have down time or “free time”, my thoughts go dark, and then I am caught in a black hole of despair and hopelessness from which I am certain there is no escape.

My daughter and I talk a lot, and that helps quite a bit, but she is at an age where she prefers the (virtual) company of her friends. I understand that. After all, I was once her age, so I try not to impose too much on her time.

I read a lot, though nothing new – mostly rereading the old books I have. There’s a certain comfort in knowing how the stories will end, and reading a story again can feel like visiting an old friend. There is comfort in familiarity and so whenever I am feeling particularly lonely, I pick up an old book and relive the parts of the stories that make me feel like home.

Binge watching Netflix can be entertaining at times, but I found that I can spend an entire day just sprawled out on my couch. I would feel a huge amount of guilt at the end of the day for not being productive, so I rarely watch television anymore.

The short of it is that I do not find anything pleasurable anymore. Sure, I have my occasional trysts with NP and FF, but even that feels empty.

I get up every morning, put on my work face, smile when I need to smile, perform my duties at work and at home, exercise fanatically every night – basically live my life like a high functioning human being – but I am dead inside.

I know this just is just a cycle, and soon, I will feel better again. But for now, all I can see in front of me is darkness, and during these times, I pray for nothing but everlasting sleep.

Melting Old Habits

“Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.” ~ Rumi, The Essential Rumi

New York got dumped with quite a bit of snow this year. Two weeks ago, we had seventeen inches of snow. This past week we only got a few inches, but it was a few inches on top of the snow that never melted from last time.

Texas got battered this past week with a severe winter storm, and many are left without power or water. They are in a state of emergency with fifteen million ordered to boil water after a power failure.

So, I do not feel right complaining about the weather situation here in New York.

This was taken on 31 January – the first snowfall of the year.

Of course, it does not look this pretty anymore. It is now about 4 inches of brown and yucky slush. I trekked in it this morning as I made my way to the Sunday farmer’s market they have in my neighborhood.

One of the many changes I made during this pandemic is my diet. I have been eating primarily food that I cook at home, and not intentionally, I stopped consuming dairy products. It was difficult to get fresh milk at the start of the pandemic, so I resorted to buying cartons of oat milk. Additionally, it was rare for me to eat restaurant food so during the course of the year, my stomach became accustomed to digesting more natural foods.

On the way back home from the farmer’s market, I ran into a few neighborhood friends, and we decided to have brunch at a local restaurant. New York is at twenty-five percent capacity at restaurants now, so we were fortunate to be able to dine indoors.

Within thirty minutes of eating restaurant food and drinking coffee with regular milk, my stomach started making noises and I felt that uncomfortable wrench of indigestion, and I immediately knew it was because my body was no longer accustomed to regular milk and restaurant food.

Because my body reacted so violently, I took it as a signal that I should not try to restore my pre-pandemic dietary choices, and to proceed with the new and healthier way of eating that I adopted this past year.

It it not lost on me that it took a pandemic to get me to start eating healthily.

Heart Restructuring

“The voice of Love seemed to call to me, but it was a wrong number.” ~ P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves!

It is Saturday, the 20th of February, in the year 2021. It has been three-hundred and forty-two (342) days since the quarantine/pandemic started for me. It has been nearly one year.

All in all, the pandemic has been good to and for me. I feel horribly writing this, as I know so many people have suffered unimaginable losses, but aside from the long periods of sheltering in place and the limited social and physical interactions with society and people, overall I have done really well the last eleven months.

Financially, I made more money last year than I have ever made in my life. Corporate restructuring is my line of work, and as you can imagine, with the fall of the economy as a result of the pandemic and the shutting of businesses, I was busy, and this is stating it mildly.

Physically, I am in the best health and shape than I have been in years. I started a fitness regime last year to stave off boredom, and I stuck through it this entire time. The hard work has paid off.

In the physical relationship department, I also flourished. A friend had introduced me to one of her clients, a Nordic pilot (“NP“) twenty years my junior. He and I got on in September, and until now, we enjoy an easy, no-strings attached friendship. With the massive age difference, we both knew that this “thing”would never develop into anything further, but we enjoy each other’s company whenever he is in town. I genuinely like him as a person, and hope that even when the flames die, we will still be friends.

In October, I connected with a male friend who I met in 2014. We were both in relationships when we first met, but we since have both broken up with our respective partners. We decided to meet up one afternoon in October. The sexual tension had been building up the last six years, and on that afternoon, we finally succumbed to it. The reality was even better than the fantasy we both had created in our imaginations, and my only regret now is that we did not explore this opportunity earlier. His touch is always so gentle, yet wanting, and oftentimes I find myself daydreaming about our interactions, replaying them in my mind over and over again.

He is a fantastic man overall – a loving son to his parents, a kind and caring brother to his sister, and a hero to the city as a firefighter (“FF“), and if the situation were only different, I really could see myself with him.

However, much like NP, he is much younger than I am. Thirteen years younger, to be exact. Better than twenty, but still too much.

And that’s where my good fortune ends.

I realized that I was catching feelings for FF when one night in January, NP called to say he was in town and asked if I wanted to meet up. I told him that I was feeling under the weather and said that I would catch him the next time he was back in town. I sensed his disappointment, but I figured it was better than if he were to come over just to feel that my heart was not into it.

The truth was, I could not stop thinking about FF, and I felt guilty as though I were cheating on him with NP, even though he and I had not established any kind of commitment. Even more so, I had broken my own heart when I had told FF early on that I was only looking for a FWB situation. I am not sure why I told him that, but I can only imagine that it was for my own self-preservation. Better for me to setup the hurt myself, than to be hurt by him in the likely event that once he bores of me, he would break it off with me and say “you’re just too old for me” or something to that effect.

I just don’t think my heart can withstand another breaking.

Matters of the heart are where I have never been successful. Ever. All other parts of my life may be flourishing and prosperous, but my heart has always been bankrupted.

I am an expert in corporate restructuring – I only wish I knew how to restructure my heart to make myself believe in love again.