I’ve been sheltered in place because of the pandemic since March 13, 2020.
No one knew that it would be like this or last this long. I certainly didn’t.
Last summer was supposed to be the Summer of Adventure. I was supposed to take my first plane ride as an adult, to fly out and spend a few weeks with my then partner in Cali. Emboldened by Spinraza, I was testing the waters for an eventual relocation. I was unfurling my wings and daring to fly.
But that never happened.
Instead, the imaginary time clock till the start of The Summer of Adventure came and went and I was still at home, worrying if I’d be able to get Spinraza again, much less to fly out anywhere.
What did wind up happening were the breaking of the thin threads that had kept me at and in my family home and by extension my previous life.
In August 2020, I did relocate, to my new place, still in Miami. At the time of the move, I still looked forward to pulling up stakes in a year to Cali. Imagining what life had in store for me in new air and environs. New people, a fresh start.
September began the closing of the chapter of my family home. And I was and am still full of feels that things ended the way they did.
October was an ending too, of my relationship with my partner. In my shifting landscape, there were now large forests of devastation. Parcels of sacred land torched to the ground, large trees felled and up rooted as far as my mind could imagine, as far as my heart could feel.
And without break, December too set its own fire, taking a steadfast port in my firestorm, Mr. Orr, who gifted me with shelter and a brief rest.
I cannot list my losses without mentioning the gifts. The folx who showed up as my knees buckled while the fires engulfed me, who came and took care of the parts of me I never realized I neglected while the magnitude of the devastation revealed themselves to me, who helped make my house into a home even as I had to leave the only other place I had known as such, who save me from myself daily. Who’ve let me cry. Who hugged me once during this pandemic cause I couldn’t take not one more day unhugged. Who check on and make sure I have a little coin in my purse. These people have been gifts, even as I had and have days were being alive felt and feels like standing in the middle of a roaring, unceasing fire.
The chapter on my family home closed in February this year. And my Beginning Again continues still, even as my heart breaks for all the loss, for all the things I came to know, for all the trauma I’ll have to overcome,
for all the hurt I’ve been hurt, for all the therapy still out in front of me.
In this Beginning Again, I have a really hard time with feeling left behind. As a disabled person, I get ‘left behind’ in a lot of overt and subtle ways. It’s difficult not to take it personally when it happens. Often my reluctance to dive in gets seen as an unwillingness to move forward. I get it. The thing is, If you’ve felt left behind often enough though, you’d be reluctant to dive in too.
Yet with all the moving and planning and relocating that has happened since the pandemic, a part of me feels left behind. I don’t have any better words for it than that.
I spent the better part of two weeks tracking down a safe way to get vaccinated for COVID. It felt surreal as I made call after call and spoke to person after person until I finally got registered with the right program to help make it happen. After finally deciding to get the vaccine, as a disabled person without a vehicle, having to hunt down a safe way to get vaccinated, I felt left behind.
So, in the middle of this land, charred with devastation, I keep trying to Begin Again. To pick up my baton and wade into the blackened earth, turn it over, give it new water. I keep getting mad that I keep getting stuck, that all I can smell is char, that I am covered in soot, disappointment, heartache.
It is disheartening and crazy making. And I’m still wondering how I can still be upright wanting to plant anything at all.
My COVID shot will be in two days.
I’m going for my eye exam for new glasses on Thursday.
I have a TeleHealth set up ahead of my next Spinraza.
My bush medicine remedy helped me clear up a UTI – the labs the nurse practitioner ran last week confirmed it. High key shocked it worked.
I’m still drinking my smoothies every other day.
I’ve been sheltered in place since March 13, 2020.
This devastation is real. I still don’t understand how I’m upright through it.