It’s raining here, it’s been raining a while. I’ve left the house once in the past week – we took a drive to the Chalmette Battlefield (site of the Battle of New Orleans) and had a picnic on the grass. That was Wednesday. I don’t think I’ve set foot farther than my driveway since then. This hermit-like existence is getting to me. I’m swinging wildly between feeling claustrophobic about being stuck in here, and feeling agoraphobic and never wanting to leave. The only consistent thing is the phobia part.
I’m half joking, but only half. As the months wind on, I’m having to do more and more anxiety management. I know we’re all in the same boat, and it’s normal and fine, and also abnormal and really not fine and all of us will suffer the mental health effects of this for the rest of our lives. And so it goes. A hundred years’ pandemic is a big deal, and it’s ok to feel overwhelmed sometimes.
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On Thanksgiving Day, the Prof set a schedule ahead of time so everyone would have the right expectations. Morning was Enforced Family Time – all boys expected to be downstairs with us from 9-12 while we watched the Macy’s parade. Jack tried to sneak upstairs a couple times, but I hollered “ENFORCED FAMILY TIME,” and he would give a sheepish grin and slink back downstairs. It was quite nice. I cut the boys’ hair on the back porch while they watched the parade through the window, and we ate a truly terrible breakfast casserole that was supposed to consist of sausage, eggs, milk, torn up bread, and some seasonings. I forgot the milk, so it was just a tray of hot bread with sausage in it. As the Prof wryly said upon seeing the casserole, “Nailed it.”
Dinner, however, was much better. The boys were released to go play screens while I cooked, and cook I did. Our roast beast was delicious, roasted to tender medium rare perfection (I’m boiling the bones now for beef stock). The grits were excellent, the honey and balsamic Brussels sprouts great. I even threw a few carrots and onions in with the beef, and those were good too. We had apple pie a bit later on, and then went across the street to our neighbor’s backyard for a socially distanced, outdoors chat by their fire pit. That plus zoom chats made for the ultimate Pandemic Thanksgiving.
Friday, the Prof took the boys on a bike ride. I stayed home and did a zoom workout with my trainer, then did some Black Friday shopping. ‘Twas not an amazing set of sales, TBH, but I ordered a few things and at this point we are almost all done. We ordered pizza for dinner and watched Part One of the seventh Harry Potter movie.
Saturday rained all day, and we put up Christmas decorations inside, and watched Part Two of the seventh Harry Potter movie. We also played this game that Jack made up, called Phantasmaphobia. Something to do with ghosts . . . bewildering, confounding instructions, lots of creative ideas with no real form, and disappointment from Jack when we were not able to correctly play it according to his vision . . . it was a typical Jack event. But we promised we’d do it and we did it, and even if it wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured it in his head, at least we all had fun trying.
Now it is Sunday. It’s raining all day again. I’ve ordered groceries, and set up the Polar Express train on the floor, and then made clay out of flour and salt so the boys could build me a village to put near the train. We watched Elf and built things out of clay and are spending another pandemic day together indoors. Tomorrow I go back to work. I’ve felt guilt and anxiety all weekend about not working, which is so ANNOYING. I let myself take these days off because I need them, it’s been a busy and stressful month with an opposing counsel being a real jerk. I just wish I could shed the pointless, unnecessary guilt. The Prof has wisely observed that in some ways I am very suited for litigation (I can think and make decisions very quickly), but in other ways it is an absolutely terrible fit (the anxiety issues). What did Courtney Milan say? “Law is one of the few professions where the response to ‘I got a job!’ and ‘I quit my job!’ is ‘OMG! Yay! Congratulations!'”
(Courtney Milan is a romance writer, whose real name is Heidi Bond, and who was a brilliant lawyer who clerked for Alex Kozinski and the Supreme Court. She was sexually harassed by Kozinski, which caused crippling anxiety and depression, and so the brilliant jurist dropped out of the profession and became a romance novelist. Which, frankly, sounds like a dream move to me, but I don’t make the SCOTUS-clerk big bucks that would float us a couple years without my income.)
Speaking of, I was offered a clerkship with a state court judge who is my close friend. But it pays like $25 an hour, so I have to say no. The hours are 9am-4pm . . . it would be amazing, and a potential stepping stone to becoming a judge one day myself. But we just can’t swing a pay cut that huge. Jack goes to college in just five years. Sigh. It sometimes seems I’m going to be stuck doing this forever.
Well. I am writing two books right now. Slowly, with what little energy and creativity I have left to spare at the end of the workday. Maybe in ten years, I’ll finish one and sell it and become a super rich novelist, like Nora Roberts or somebody. Yeah! Eyes on the prize. I’m only 42 after all. Life’s only half done – plenty of years left.
I hope you and yours had a lovely holiday. Onward to Christmas!