It's been a minute.

It's been a long minute.

We're in a global crisis unlike anything the past four generations have ever seen. The world is literally on fire and people are preoccupied... with semantics. 

I'm angry. I'm stuck inside because interacting with others puts me at risk for a virus that is blazing a wildfire across continents. The idiot in the White House thinks himself the sun king, and every institutional safeguard has been destroyed or eroded by rich, craven morons; and we aren't even into hurricane season yet. It's a shitshow by every measure.

And it's been hard, you guys. So hard. We've been self-quarantined since the beginning of March and that first week was just me curled up in a ball of anxiety and fear in my chair, phone in my hand reading the same six re-posted news articles, letting the fear of uncertainty creep into my bones. My phone usage, according to my phone, the authority on my cellphone usage, says my anxiety caused a 600% surge last month. I desperately needed something else to do with my hands.
All my external mechanisms of coping; work, the gym, martial arts, literally going anywhere, evaporated. So I turned to video games and viewable content. Those soon lost their luster, too. So now I'm reading books and trying to learn guitar. That has been able to hold my interest better than most but still the heaviness in the pit of my stomach is uncomfortable to carry.

And let me tell you, hoo boy, do I suck at guitar! Music theory is obtuse, my fretting is lazy, and I rush and/or drag often. Sometimes in the same bar. But... I forget about the low frequency nausea that has clung to my guts for the past month as an unfortunate side effect of spending all my waking hours worrying about my life and livelihood and those of my loved ones. And it's all I can focus on until the CBD kicks it away for a while. And that's the thing, we're in an inflection moment where all the distractions we've created for ourselves are gone and we're forced to look at ourselves like a forced moment of clarity. Except if you watch Fox News all day. Your head is still in the fish bowl.

Cut to the next day:

I put this post down yesterday because I got stuck. Between then and now I had a panic attack. I've had break downs before, but never anything like this. I couldn't breathe. It felt like what I imagine drowning feels like: an invisible pillow over my face refusing to let up. My wife, Heather, attempted to comfort me but it was all I could do to push her away to give me space. That was the scary part: just needing space to let my body freak out and push all this anxiety to the surface, like sweating out a fever. I remember thinking about how unusual it felt to know I was freaking out involuntarily but simultaneously remarking upon it with the knowledge that, in actuality, I was not in any danger. Cognitive Dissonance, I guess? And now I feel like a rung out towel. Some residual anxiety remains but that tight ball of nausea abated for a few precious hours.