#anyway I saw these flowers with my dad and stepmom in the spring

[allthesethingsthative-read]

[baileys-quarantine-journal]

Day 1: “it’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out”🍓

Day 1:

bonjour mes amis. today i start this ‘corona journal’ as a daily log and outlet as I cope with this quarantine. as an ESFJ, someone with a dire need for human connection and physical touch, and as someone with diagnosed major depression and generalized anxiety, just the couple of weeks since school has shut down with the rest of life as I’ve always known it have been increasingly scary and difficult for me. so here is my shit. i hope that if you are reading this you may be able to find some form of comfort or solace in this, and know that you are not alone. i’m tired of rules so i’m gonna make this the E.E. Cummings of blogs and give 0 fucks, cuz that is about all I have left in me...

today was a hard day, thus inspiring this creation. i had to open today, working at the grocery store as a cashier from 7-2 pm. yesterday i got an awful migraine at work which threw me into a series of catastrophic thoughts self-diagnosing me with covid. which has happened far more than once. unfortunately my anxiety has led me down the path of what i would call ‘phantom symptoms’. things like shortness of breath are something that comes from my anxiety (and actually sent me to the ER once before I figured out it was just a panic attack). and conveniently that is also a symptom of covid. so i am sure you could imagine the vicious cycle that this creates. my dad told me about my stepmom’s best friend who went to a ski resort and then found out someone had it there. she then reported a sore throat. but my dad said that if that happened to him he would probably feel a sore throat to and i find some calming value in that thought (he also suffers from anxiety). to quote one of my heroes george harrison, “it’s all in the mind” and although georgie was probs talking about LSD or some mantra repeated while plucking away at his sitar, i find meaning in that. it is important to remember that a lot of what we are feeling may have more internal cause than external. anyways, I got home yesterday and k.o.ed at 6 and woke up at 10 ish. by then i said fuck it and went back to bed an hour later cuz i knew i would have to be right back at work in the morning. today i woke up 20 minutes before work. i’ve been taking my mom’s 2008 odyssey to work most days during this weird fever dream which has been very helpful. i got my license about a month ago. i am very glad i did it before all of this craziness truly began because at least now i have a way to get out when i need it. a little escape into the car radio is very very necessary sometimes. this past week my main coping strategies have been listening to fleetwood mac and playing mario galaxy 2 however these can only go so far lol. strongly recommend both though ;) screaming “damn your love damn your lies” in the car like you’ve really been wronged is surprisingly VERY cathartic. today work went by mostly fast and painless, thankfully. after i got home i found myself caught back in a snapchat and twitter loop in my unmade bed in my messy room (which i hate to keep messy). i really believe in the idea of clean space clean mind. because my room is usually a solid reflection of my mental health, and my room definitely affects my mood in turn. 

after a certain point, a conversation with a close friend where i crossed a boundary and started momming them awakened me to how tense i was. i decided to go for a walk. the first thing i saw was a little playground with caution tape around it. there is something eerie about that but it looked so silly considering it is a tiny toddler sized playground. i walked the path around my neighborhood and this is when thoughts began to pour. you never ever think you will live through something as crazy as this until it happens. i thought about people who wrote through insane times, like Anne Frank for example. not to say i am experiencing a plight anywhere near hers, but, i just thought about the fact that one day some historian might read this blog post and archive it in some fancy futuristic file and use it as an example of how the youth of america experienced the covid-19 virus in the year 2020. i honestly have felt such insane denial throughout all this. this can’t be real right? missing a month or more of school? grocery stores looking like a best buy on black friday?? these are things i could have never imagined. and yet i feel nothing. maybe it is just my nature that it is hard to surprise me after all i have seen. or perhaps it is just the nature of my generation. the psychologists and sociologists in me would love to have these answers. i walked across the street to a park area i have roamed since childhood. i sat on my favorite rock bench. this is what i refer to as my happy place but today it did not look or feel so happy. the sky was gray and dreary and the only life surrounding me were some sweet little ducks. oh to be a blissfully unaware duck during such trying times. memories surrounded me on this walk. i remembered how months prior there was a pride fest in this very place, and a carnival, and how i danced in front of a stage to cover bands of earth, wind, and fire and the beatles. and i also remembered walking on these paths in 1st and 2nd grade feeding wonder-bread to ducks (i'm so sorry babies), and rolling down the hill, and that one time my dad pushed me over the little bridge on the stroller so fast that a fun time ended with me slinging out and scraping my little knees. memories of what i call the secret garden where i went to see the flowers every spring, and took pictures at quinces at, and snuck to during theatre rehearsals in middle school. but there was barely a soul there today. no flowers and no light. i cried. i closed my eyes and breathed in the wind that was rustling the trees. at sundown i walked home and showered and decided i might as well poor all of this out before i lose it. i love making playlists so maybe i will start a quarantine one to share or do some daily song suggestions.

today’s song (where the heading quote is derived from) :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUH9z_Oey8

some pictures from my excursion today: