I am struggling with my mental state to the point that it is having a physical impact on my body. In this time where I want to be carefree and loving and focused on the work to be done I am bombarded by worry for the mental state of others and tiptoeing around every word, phrase, and suggestion. This virus has exposed and enhanced a great deal of worries in my life. The things that are most insecure are heightened tenfold to the point where all feels like performance and nothing feels real or genuine or connected. It is as if we are all playing roles here in some apocalyptic thriller as we wait out the next step towards our inevitable end.
I do not think the Coronavirus will fundamentally change our world and interpersonal relationships for very long. I am, by nature, an optimist and one who believes in the resiliency of man. This is not a popular opinion. Everywhere I turn suggests the opposite and to hold fast to that promise of resiliency makes me feel very alone.
Much makes me feel very alone and unsafe in this situation. Perhaps that is the deepest and most honest feeling that I am registering in all of this. Perhaps that is the truest pulse of my present existence. I feel unsafe in nearly every possible way. I feel unsafe physically, as there are idiots out wandering about; as my health teeters on the dangerous edge of this pandemic and I greatly suspect if I do get this, I will be numbered among the dead. I feel unsafe emotionally, as though navigating a mine(mind)field of emotions and actions that trigger suggestions of emotion and cause those already on the edge of last light to move further into darkness.
In all of this I feel forced to carry on a lie. I feel forced to maintain this sheen of impenetrability, because that is the expectation of the man of the house, is it not? I feel triggered towards unnatural action and expectation not in line with who I am or want to be.
In all of this the one bit of security I have is my job. Sadly, this is the one area of my life in which I feel in control. I have easily digestible tasks that, once ordered into a list, can be carried out. However, I cannot do my job without guilt. Any focus on the work is largely seen as a lack of focus on the other pillars of my life. It becomes a this or that scenario that is both false and divisive. So, I do try to do the work, but it comes in starts and fits–it arises when an email catches my eye or my mind wanders towards a problem I can actually solve; towards something I can do and be done with and feel that dopamine release of success.
Yet that release is clouded by guilt as are most things in my daily existence. I am not seen as focused on the right things. I am asked and left to ask myself why that is. Perhaps in these words above there is a truer answer.