“There are certain life lessons that you can only learn in the struggle.” ― Idowu Koyenikan
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ― C.S. Lewis
It’s the eve of New Year’s Eve as I write and take a look back at 2020 and look ahead to 2021, wondering what the new year will bring.
There’s a blanket of fresh snow outside. Yesterday, I went grocery shopping to ensure I was prepared to be snowed in as I shelter-in-place between the holidays and before I return to work next week at my part-time-job. I only venture out for work and essential services, including a New Year’s Eve dentist appointment and a haircut next week. I have a mammogram scheduled the day before my January birthday. During 2020, we had to assess the risk vs. benefit in every venture outside our homes.
Sadly, I don’t get to see friends or family in-person, except in quick, touchless, socially-distanced, masked, hand-offs of food and gifts, or quick check-ins outdoors or in garages, during this cold Midwestern holiday season. Yes, 2020!
For those new to my Dispatch from the Hideout series:
I began my Dispatch from the Hideout as a one-off essay in July 2017 to describe my reaction to events in the world and my need to retreat. I was also grieving the losses in my life, the most recent at the time was my mother’s death in 2016. I introduced the series as follows:
Now, before I go any further, it’s important that I share with you that my hideout is a virtual one. I don’t have a cabin in the woods, or a bunker in the basement, I only have my home, a 645 square foot apartment. It’s where I wake up in the morning, retreat at the end of the work day, hideout on the weekends when I’m writing or feeling introverted, and end my days, often falling asleep on the couch watching TV. Yeah, I’m that girl. I live alone and most days I’m happy with that choice.
I discovered that the Dispatch from the Hideout metaphor was a useful vehicle for me to express innermost feelings, like grief and gratitude, moments when I faced my shadow, or questioned my choices, plus the times when I reflected on the larger world of which I’m simply a member, navigating things outside of my control, yet still have an impact on my heart, mind, and spirit. The Hideout metaphor served me and soon became a series.
Circling back to the end of February and the COVID-19 pandemic I was forced to spend more time in the Hideout to protect my physical health, safer-at-home, I soon discovered that the isolation also affected my mental. emotional, and spiritual health. When the Wisconsin Historical Society launched the Wisconsin Historical Society COVID-19 Journal Project, I was all in and to date, including this essay, I’ve contributed thirteen installments about my experience as I shelter-in-place, plus the three musings that preceded them.
Links to the complete Dispatches from the Hideout series can be accessed at the end of this essay.
Preparation, safer-at-home, and well-being seem to be the trademark themes for 2020. The pandemic has affected our lives in countless ways. I’m luckier than many other people and I acknowledge my gratitude daily. I’ve lived alone for the past 13 years, which I now realize was training for a life safer-at-home. Though I miss friends and family and continue to need social interaction and intimacy to thrive, we’ve learned how to do it differently, most often virtually.
As I’ve written in the past from a year-end-musing in 2018, Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring?
I know that in the scheme and scope of things, I’m lucky. I have family and friends who love me, a job that helps pay my bills and employs my skills, a home that shelters and protects me, food in my kitchen, my health, and a belief in a power greater than myself, which I can’t define in words, but know deep in my spirit that I’m buoyed when I have a dark night of the soul.
We’ve all been tested this year mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually. Speaking for myself, I’ve learned what’s important to me, loved ones and our larger community. During the holidays, I didn’t travel and celebrate with family and friends in-person, except in brief hellos and hand-offs of gifts.
I spent a lot of time reminiscing about the past and remembered loved ones no longer here in life. I cooked a lot, experimented with new recipes (a metaphor for 2020), posted more than my share of updates and political opinions on social media, journaled, and drafted a Wisconsin Historical Society COVID-19 Journal, Dispatches from the Hideout, which I’ll now repurpose as a book.
Preparation
At the end of February 2020, I was laid-off from my 12-year job due to a company reorganization. I also questioned at the time, was it my age, or was it my politics? I chronicled the experience in my blog post, Dispatch from the Hideout: Social Distancing. Gratefully, over the years I developed good job-hunting and interview skills and quickly went to work looking for a new position as if it were a job. Soon, I had final interviews for two positions, both aligning with my community experience and avocations. In April, I accepted a job at an LGBTQ+ Community Center and began work part-time in May.
Early on during the pandemic in mid-March, I made decisions to socially distance from friends and family. As part of my preparation to be safer-at-home, I drafted a daily gratitude post on social media, as a way of training myself to look at my life and the glass half-full. It helped.
Like everyone else, I stocked up (in reasonable amounts) on what I imagined were pandemic essentials: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, paper towels, disposable gloves, bottled water ― and now looking back, what was probably more than what was necessary ― extra treats, snacks, and coffee!
As part of my preparation, in the spring, before I began work at my new job, I created a new daily routine, featured in the next installment of my Dispatch series, Dispatch from the Hideout: Pandemic Edition:
Surviving the Pandemic Daily Schedule
- Wake up about at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.
- (Wash hands a multitude of times throughout the day, applying Gold Bond Hand Lotion intermittently).
- Turn on CNN (which remains on most of the day).
- Make coffee about 4:00 a.m.
- Log on to my laptop.
- Start reading and posting on FB.
- Answer and send emails, or text.
- Make breakfast about 8:00 a.m.
- Check-off an item or two on my to-do list.
- Make lunch about noon.
- Take a nap.
- Log back onto my laptop.
- Respond to emails and/or comment on FB posts.
- Complete another item on my to-do list.
- Watch the White House COVID-19 Press Briefing.
- Post comments on Facebook regarding briefing.
- Watch the CBS Evening News, local and national.
- Switch back to CNN.
- Make dinner about 6:00 p.m.
- Watch Netflix, network TV, or, yes, you guessed it, more CNN.
- (Talk to myself throughout the day).
- Shower, brush teeth, assess whether I need to change pajamas.
- Review my day and plan the next day.
- Fall asleep to CNN.
- Repeat cycle.
After watching the White House COVID-19 Briefings, focusing on the medical experts and reading more about the virus, I assembled what I thought were COVID-19 essentials. I was gifted a facemask by a friend, and ordered a half-dozen masks, so I’d have one-a-day.
Illustration Credit: Adé Hogue
Since I’m 70-years-old and have hypertension and Type II Diabetes, which puts me at more risk if infected, I shopped at Walgreens and picked up a pulse oximeter to keep track of vitals, a new thermometer, cough drops, decongestant, Tylenol, epinephrine inhaler, and ordered a 90-day supply of my prescriptions from my online pharmacy. In April, I had my annual physical which was a virtual Tele-Medicine appointment. I was up-to-date on all my immunizations, tetanus booster, Shingrix, and flu.
To complete my COVID-19 health/safety prep, yesterday when I grocery-shopped I picked up chicken bone broth and Vitamin C-infused herbal tea with lemon. I have my favorite raw honey stocked up from an earlier trip. As soon as my turn comes up, I’ll get vaccinated. I’m prepared!
Safer-at-Home
The biggest sacrifice this year has been the letting go of in-person contact with family and friends. In April, our family had planned a 90th Birthday Celebration for our father. We reserved a small banquet hall and invited 50 friends and family. After much discussion and disappointment, which included the cancellation of flights of family members in Las Vegas and Colorado, we cancelled it.
In May, I began working at the LGBTQ+ community center which was now closed to the public. The staff consisted of five colleagues in addition to me. Since I worked part-time, my hours and exposure were limited. Eventually, I negotiated a hybrid schedule, working two days in the center, two days at home. We wore masks and socially distanced.
In addition to my family in Madison, my sister, her husband, and their two kids, I formed a quarantine bubble of a small number of friends. We called ourselves the Pod Squad, and we shared meals and celebrations safely, including a scaled-back high school graduation, wedding ceremony, and birthday outdoors, or in a garage, masked, while socially distancing. Later some of us met outdoors on a deck and again in chilly weather in the garage with the doors open, to share a meal and catch up with each other. Read more in Dispatch from the Hideout: Quarantine Bubble Edition.
The holidays: Easter, Memorial Day, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas were celebrated ‘Home Alone.’ I saw my elderly father who lives in my hometown of Racine once this year (pre-COVID I made a day trip once a month), when my sister and I visited him, in his kitchen, with the back door open, wearing masks and social distancing. It was bittersweet, but like the holidays celebrated alone, worth the sacrifice, hoping we could be together at some point again in 2021 without missing anyone.
Well-Being
While preparation and isolation, safer-at-home, were required to physically survive the pandemic (and 2020), nurturing and maintaining my well-being was both a commitment and a reward, given the unrelenting challenges we faced as a nation when our government failed to protect and support its citizenry in a time of unprecedented need.
Years of living alone helped me become resilient, adapt to change, able to weather the ups and downs of what has been described this year as a ‘coronacoaster.’ See Dispatch from the Hideout: Riding the Coronacoaster.
My hope is that in 2021, we can heal as a nation, physically, emotionally, mentally, financially, and spiritually, share resources, ensure that everyone has a home, food on the table, meaningful work, healthcare, and learn to treat each other equitably. We are in this together.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
I believe in the importance of an examined life. To remember, to reminisce with relish and delight in the mundane details of one’s life and the people who share our journey. To take a second look at my shortcomings and missteps, make amends and strive to change, to affirm my accomplishments and celebrate, even momentarily, before moving to the next thing on my list. And, lastly, to dream, imagine and visualize the future.
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ― C.S. Lewis
At midnight (if I can stay awake!), I will toast the New Year ‘Home Alone’ with some sparkling non-alcoholic cider and I’m hopeful, that whatever challenges lie ahead, my glass in 2021 will remain half-full.
Stay positive, test negative. Happy New Year!
Illustration Credit: Gemma Correll
Mixed Metaphors Oh, My! Dispatch from the Hideout Series
Dispatch from the Hideout: Riding the Coronacoaster
Dispatch from the Hideout: Staycation Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Letter to Loved Ones
Dispatch from the Hideout: Quarantine Bubble Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: What Was, What Will Be
Dispatch from the Hideout: Skin Hunger
Dispatch from the Hideout: Back to Life
Dispatch from the Hideout: Stirred Crazy
Dispatch from the Hideout: Home Alone Easter Holiday
Dispatch from the Hideout: Home Alone Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Pandemic Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Social Distancing
Dispatch from the Hideout: Premature Hibernation
Another Dispatch from the Hideout
Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! End-of-Year Musings
Drinking from a Glass-Half-Full (2016)
Finding the Light in Dark Times (2017)