Tag Archives: Coronavirus

The Cotton Debate

I have not written in a while, I have been busy loving our new life in Boulder, CO. Running trails, dragging the kids up mountains and just staring in wonder at the majestic scene that unfolds around me.

However, I have been silently watching as our 2nd COVID wave or is it still the first, surge through this country and push us all back into our boxes. Mainly, because people are essentially selfish, by the way I do include myself in this, I am no Mary Poppins, although I wish I were. Yes, I have certainly experienced COVID blues and went all gung ho on it and wanted to scream “fuck it”, whip off my mask and burn it in the street, standing naked with freedom written across my tiny breasts, hum I may just have to use my forehead as any part of my body is bigger than my puny chest area. But, of course I did not, as I am a wimp and I certainly did not want to stand in a public street naked. But, mainly it is because I believe in the virus, I believe in science, I believe that the teeny tiny piece of cloth over my mouth and nose, if worn correctly, will keep me safer, people safe and enable us to get this silent virus (unless you’re coughing REALLY loudly) under control. Which means eventually, life will go back to some form of normalcy. Maybe?!

However, people have got their “its my right”, knicker’s in a twist. I have heard, read, watched the rants. As fully grown, usually sane humans throw all their fucking toys out of their pram and stamp their feet, just because a government official has made it mandatory to place a piece of cloth on your mouth and nose. Firstly it would actually muffle your screams and moans about your “rights”. Man I want to swear so much right now, as this is making me beyond angry at how this has become such an issue. Hey, yes wearing a mask isn’t fun, but neither is wearing 6 inch heels (I still do that) or going to the dentist or cleaning up your dogs shit, but we do it, because it is the correct thing to do.

There you are, all messed up because a store or restaurant has asked you to wear a mask to …..

  1. keep their staff safe, who are working to serve YOU
  2. keep other public members safe who also need to shop/eat
  3. keep you safe.

But, some crazy human beings are losing their goddamn minds over this and it is ALL about their fucking rights!!! Hey you’ll have no rights when you may just die of the virus – roughly in America, you have a 4% chance.

Do you lose your shit and mental faculties when you are told to wear your shirt and shoes in a store/restaurant? Um no and that is a way larger piece of cotton. Do you puff up and go red and bang on about your rights, UM NO. There would not be these mandates if human beings were actually cool and put these suckers on, but they do not and we are having surges. So if people cannot do the decent thing, well in come the rules and the fines. You brought it on to your self. Do not want to wear the innocuous piece of fabric, well then, just stay the fuck home and relish in your rights, don’t get angry or dickish about it, read the science, talk to doctors, speak to people who have had the virus. I am sure they do not care about your rights while they are trying to breathe in intensive care.

It astounds me at how up in arms people are about this, I am perplexed, I seriously do not think “big brother is watching me” when I wear my mask. First up they would have a job to recognize who the hell I am, with my mask on.

Your mask is a :-

  1. double chin godsend
  2. spot hider
  3. halitosis saver
  4. coffee breath extinguisher
  5. burp holder
  6. dumb comment muffler
  7. chin warmer
  8. UV protector
  9. eye mask
  10. head band
  11. emergency panty liner
  12. funky wrist band
  13. back up oven glove
  14. shit the list is endless and to be honest I’m glad some people have to cover their faces, I just wish Trump would do it more often. .

Lovely people, many whom I love, please, be kind, suck up and cover that goddamn mouth. If you cannot, please stay home and rant on Facebook about how terrible life is, because at least then no one will get hurt.

I love you by the way in your mask anger.

Love Kelly “The Mask” Joy

Sometimes I just do not want to….

COPE.

As the Rona drags on people all over the world, either in lock down or social distancing at home are rapidly starting to fade. At first everyone was all gung ho, fighting in unison, fighting the good fight, the right fight. Joined in one goal, united to save the world, unnamed heroes for the weak, compromised and elderly.

We were strong and shiny, relishing in this new world of change and as they say “a change is as good as rest”?

However, time has creeped on and some poor souls are still navigating lock downs and the rest of us are social distancing. The shiny patina is cracking and the levels of distance are getting closer, as people become bored, tired, depressed and sloppy.

I hold my hands up, I may be one of them, letting the slide begin. My hands bleed from the amount of times I wash them and they hurt, I want them to stop hurting. The new life is now OLD, our resilience and stoic determination has turned into a secret longing to escape and break all the rules. The slide of darkness has begun and the depression and anxiety I fight so hard against, are digging their tiny little claws deeper and deeper into my skin and are beginning to break through to the bone.

I’m tired and the anxiety is knocking hard at my shell. Every day I fight off a little panic and then another panic waves over and my breathing gets short and I am convinced the virus has come to drag me to the nearest hospital. A mist settles, stubbornly at the periphery of my vision and I see the world through a haze. Nothing is clear and all is obscured. I want to run hard, to run far and hope I can out run my fear. I want to drink to ease the adrenaline, but my eating disorder will not allow it. Because, walking hand in hand with my anxiety is little Miss Anorexia and she can be very persuasive; albeit a very slow runner, as she does not eat enough. My tools are in place and my sanity understands the whirlpool I peer into, trying not to dip a toe in and get sucked into oblivion.

I need to get out, we need to escape. The world needs to be released, to conquer fears and viruses and figure this shit out. I am a shadow, sucked dry of trying to be fun, positive, creative, a good mum, a caring wife, a thoughtful friend. I want to be selfish, self centered and just walk out the door, not to come back for a day.

Sadly, the days will continue and I need to figure my crap out, look at it, accept it and see myself for who I am. Slightly damaged goods with a time well earned, super hero cape, that floats all glittery and shiny over my broken core. I know my life is not as bad as others and I am not sad. I am just trying to cope, the only way I know how and if that includes a 20 mile run, a eating disorder and a few panic attacks, that is mine to own and I will not apologise for being honest about it and showing it to you. It is my gift to you, to share, to reveal and to understand your feelings are yours and yours alone and no one else is allowed to minimize them and tell you they are irrelevant. They are yours, a gift of your strength and for you to release the burden, as this can lessen the pain. I am here to take that for you and relinquish it with mine.

I am exhausted. I am your friend, I am honest, I am raw, I will not apologize.

Signed

K. K,” so over being good” Joy

Loss – Balance – Life

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery.” – A Brave New World, By Aldous Huxley

So much has been written about COVID 19. Extensive reporting, every blog, dick and Harry is about it. – Oh, in case you were terrified I am going off topic here oh don’t be silly. I’m all over this supposed disaster like Rona’s twin virus, clearing up the excess in healthy bodies.

New World

The Pandemic has pushed us in to a space of uncertainty and it is a hard place to navigate.

We have had to face extensive change, restrictions, enforced restrictions. The ease of life has been reduced and we as mere Homo Sapiens can get fixated on how my life ISNT rather than what it has become. I have written a few posts on the hilarity of loss and change and so have millions of others.

THE GOOD that grows from nothingness.

However, I do want to talk about the “good” we have achieved, but from the perspective of myself as a lowly human bean (Love the BFG), at home with her 3 children, nutjob cat who thinks he is a dog and a hard working but highly amusing husband.

Believe me, when I say, this is a narrow focus. Hummm, should take like 2 minutes, so I am sure you are about to pee your pants in excitement with bated breath.

TIME

This is the single most important gift that the pandemic has bequeathed to me. Life has sloooweeedd right down and I am grateful. I am not longer living at top speed, where my world is a blur and the details are lost. Instead I have stalled, and my surroundings are crystal sharp, in focus, the SD is now HD and my eyes hurt from the clarity they now must process. Life halted and nature came back in to view as my eyes grazed up from the floor, past my phone and looked out to all that is around. Oh, and I picked up a book again and started to read.

On a very personal level, time has hit back against the restless energy that possesses my every waking moment. It drives me to perpetually keep moving, but now I am forced to be still. This works against every fiber of my being. But who said therapy was easy? I am always running (literally) from myself, the demons planted there at a very young age, by an unknown assailant. The self-hatred and fears, they crept in and now reside in every cell, festering. Memories locked in my secret “brain never remember that again compartment”. It’s a dark and bleak world in there, lost but not really forgotten. Time, the pandemic, the “lock me up”, has allowed me to watch these youth formulated self-perceptions, unwanted memories and start to accept them. Allowing the light to start trickling in, illuminating the snuff dark of a disillusioned child.

SINGLE UNIT in motion

Time has enabled me to cease the intense screaming that is required to get the kids to school. There is no rush, flurry or elevated stress levels. With “crisis” school as I have now called it, because, I am certainly not homeschooling at any level of intelligence or knowledge. We are now able to wake, eat, dress, brush teeth, sit and LOG ON in a mere 60 minutes. We are learning to work together as a family. All of us are solitary but are learning to be together, a single unit. Moving forward in masse and between us we are less frequently looking back at what it once was, but accepting instead the what it has now become.

BALANCE

In life we need balance, it is an intrinsic part of our being. There has not been balance in the world for a very long time. We scrabble at home to create equilibrium, with yoga, meditation, time alone, limited screen time, but life gets in the way. We are urged to be better, work longer, faster, keep up with all that is thrown at us and if we cannot keep up we have failed, we are unwanted.

Yet, Coronavirus is bringing back that balance, in its weird body humbling way. It is reminding us we are not invincible and that our life was skewed. The world is heavy with, people, industry, war, hate, dictatorship, greed, it is dragging us down and squishing our hopeful faces into the mud and standing on them. Equilibrium has to be restored, stitched back into the fabric of our day. Coronavirus is leveling the playing field, stripping off the weight and enabling us to all see we are equal, and no one is exempt from its infiltration and grip. Everything has its direct opposite and without it, the light will feel dark, the good becomes evil, the left will become right, and the action will also become a reaction, never ending in its totality. A circle will never become whole, but always an eternal straight line, leading us in a never ending, forward motion, full speed, no time to complete the cycle and sit back to reflect – EXHAUSTING, Fucking Exhausting.

REMEMBER

We are all sitting in that same boat (all be it, 6 ft. apart) floating in an unknown sea of uncertainty, alone, solitary but united.

Re learning to collaborate, harvest empathy, see again the beauty of mother earth and being given a moment to breathe again. w

We are being released from the suffocation of our excesses. Which means she (earth) too can breathe again and begin to nurture her inhabitants in their time of need.

The virus has smashed our technological cocoon and exposed us to the rawness of our internal crux and basic needs. Because, that is what we are, basic! With all our intelligence (with some people I do beg to differ on this point) our sophistication, our needs are still basic, so very basic. When the world is stripped back, all we need to survive, is food, water, air to breathe, sunlight, a home, income to support the essentials, the ability to feel, cherish the rain on you skin and the sun on your back, smell the earth, lie down in the grass with a breeze fluttering across our face. That is life! That is what we are having to remember! It is not about how many toilet rolls you own. That is what the pandemic is revealing, in small tiny fragments. Generating hope for a future we can be proud of, that we can thrive in and a world we are happy to die in.  Eventually, giving back our bodies to nurture a future generation of hope.

And that my friends, is what the pandemic has given me, I have little fear, only hope we will and can do better.

I would like to sign off with another quote from a Brave New World – as so apt and seriously one of my favorite books.

“I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then,” he added in a lower tone, “I ate my own wickedness.” ― Aldous Huxley

Peace out and now in the words of Samuel L Jackson

“Stay the Fuck at Home!”

Love Kelly