Covid-19 world PART II

On a brighter note, my neighbor is divorcing the boyfriend she was helping to stay in our country. They had a romantic relationship that just went off the rails once he got married and started to get everything that he wanted. Or so she says. I may have mentioned before, she is a lovely person, but her social que's are the worst. Social distancing is something that was made with her in mind. She cannot sit still. If you are having a conversation with her, she must be on her phone taking pictures or doing something. Then, she always wants something to eat or drink, and whatever it is, she leaves back half or more of it. Then, she wants to take a picture of it for her Instagram account and she wants to include you in the shot. She has a frenetic energy that any boyfriend would eventually find too much. I really do believe that the men mean well and that she is too much. The good news, is that she had a new boyfriend in the weeks she decided to divorce him. This new man is married. That is not the good news) the whole set up with the new person was ridiculous. His wife lives in another country but returns every three months. This year, she returned just as Covid-19 started to make its presence felt. So my neighbor was seeing him and he was running away from his home for a hook up with her. She calls me today to say that after three months going out with him, she will be breaking up with him, because he's a cheapskate and doesn't take her anywhere. However he wants to come over for hook ups and doesn't even bring her flowers from her own garden when he comes by. I am so glad to hear her putting herself first! I think that finally she has learned from all of the experiences she has been through. Ordinarily she would have called me to work it out, make excuses for him and want to see the whole thing through for a year, or more. She also made me laugh at her own observation of the whole thing with both men...she said that the one she is divorcing was not giving her any affection and the one she left him for is giving her too much affection and ONLY the affection. Life can be so mysterious. .................................................... Now, my friend I was writing about...she has never been straight with her two children about her finances. I have tried on several occasions to encourage her to have better communication with them. But she is always telling me that I don't know them and she knows how they would react or act. Last year I may have written that our friendship was nearly severly compromised by an event with her neighbor that she ranted on and on about for several days to the point that I began to feel physical symptoms and had to cut her off. Well, I am back at that point with her again. No matter what I suggested to her, she refuses to see reason. So I backed off completely. Last year, I worked with her like it was a job, to get her to change her energy around her two children. I am happy to report that all of the hard work payed off. She went abroad and stayed with them as she does every year, half the time with one and half with the other...and she had a much better experience. So when I have to write that I cannot help her, I am saying a lot. I worked and worked with her to get her to shift her perspective, but I cannot and will not do it this time around. It is taking time away from my own life, it is that absurd! I also believe that she really doesn't want help to fix whatever it is, because like what happened with her neighbor, the issue is so damn petty that no one has time for the crap! Is this about getting older? Perhaps? What upset me most about listening to my friend is that I hear her say some really awful things about herself and her children, and I wanted to tell her that if I lived in her head, I would break free and escape. If I talk about myself and what I believe has happened to me the way that she does, then life is damn dark and pointless! And this is someone who is getting all of her needs met, all of the time. It is so sad. I just had to divorce myself from her situation for my own wellbeing.

The Covid-19 world

I did not realise that I had not come to my blog for so long! The Covid-19 Pandemic could do that. So much is going on. In the morning, I get up, do the usual things for breakfast and then turn the television on to our government letting us know what is happening with the citizens who have the virus and all the other important questions and answers about the economy and safety and who can work and who isn't required to go out because we all MUST STAY AT HOME. There have been many good things coming out of the whole thing thus far. I was staying at home ever since January, but I did have a few freelance things that I was doing, and I was on the verge of doing a presentation for my university. The day I was supposed to set up, the news came that the event was postponed. Shortly thereafter, schools were closed and people encouraged to stay at home. Since then I have not been idle at all. I have scheduled certain projects that I have always wanted to do and to complete and I have also had moments where I could also just relax. At first I had the notion that I still had no time on my hands. Then, slowly, I saw that what I was doing was assuming that I had to do everything all at once. When I considered my exercise routine (which I stopped a little while after schools closed) that I obviously gain strength and muscle from frequency and variety...I was good. I have been working out at home and getting better results! Who would have thought. Then, I am able to Skype my child! YES!!!! Finally!!!! We do not do it every day, but often enough, and I am so happy about that. Then, the biggest surprise came during a Facebook chat with a friend. I got a message from juliemangoman. He wanted to know how I was doing! The person that I was talking with knows the story, so she teased me about it...in fact, we were having a laugh about him the day before with me able to make fun of myself regarding what I would have been doing if everything had worked out. So I know that I had really grown from the experience. It has now been two weeks and we have been communicating. The best thing that has come out of all of this is my knowing what I want and what it now means to me. I shall write about it in another post. My friend on the other hand, we had a challenge today. She had had issues with her children, and something that has been festering (in her mind) for a decade or more has now come to the fore. I was doing my best to give her support and comfort, but my friend is blocked in her thinking and I conceeded that I could not help her. Today, she brought it up again and claimed that she was made ill by the whole thing. This is all in her own mind. Pretty much like what is going on with my father right now. He hasn't been walking and every time we try to move him to get him bathed or comfortable, my mother, aunt and I are at our wits end because the physio-therapist who visits him says that he is perfectly well and can walk, and we can see that he can walk because of the way he acts when we distract him or I move him by myself. I don't ell my friend about my challenges with my father...she cannpt really say or do anything. But she goes into deep detail about everything happening with her. I am not comparing us to say that I want her listening to my issues, but that, to me, there are things that you work on and resolve. Having to rely on someone elses opinion or sounding off to a friend just to throw your worries on them isn't friendship. She talks about vampires....and I am saddened to write that she can say that because she embodies it as well. Of course I have to be careful, because if I too see that, then I must do it too! We are all vulnerable, this virus is making men and boys of us all. ....this should be a part one....

contemplations in a covid world

Two posts today....one of the things that I have been doing is finding some way to devise a schedule for myself. I am doing a free online class that i began yesterday for example and my mum and I may also do a Duolongo class in learning Mandarin. I have been working on a book for a million years and my partner and I had shelved it for a year and we were just talking about starting it up again with the intentions of helping children in a home that he volanteers at, as a financial gesture to assist them with placement when they turn eighteen. Now that has stalled. However, I decided to contact two of the interviewees of the twenty that I have to speak with again. In so doing, I had to go onto Facebook to reach one of them. That person has the flashiest page and life. He knows celebrities, he is extremely wealthy from his work and he is both young and handsome and filled with life and has a really large personality. He's a nice person. I was vicariously watching a few of his images. I don't know why, but I always feel as though I am being a voyeur on Facebook. I cannot go through people's pictures. It just feels wrong to me....I feel as though I am rifling through someone's life without their permission. Lol. Anyway, I obviously saw a few of his images because I was on his page directly when I wrote to him...and I got sucked into his glamorous world and I asked myself, what is it about him that makes me feel a distance between my life and his? Am I jealous of his success? Is it that he has something that I want? The answer that came to me was quite enlightening. I heard myself respond that the reason I am looking at his page and considering what I was, is because I think that there is something I need to be doing in my own life. BAM! On further assessment, I realised that I DO NOT promote myself that way online. I have never posted images of the places I have been....travel is not novel to me. I don't take pictures of what I just ate. I don't have an online social life period, I find it absurd!I am not living for likes. That satisfied me tremendously to get back to myself. It is nice to visit others, but it is also nice to acknowledge the self.

home bound

This pandemic has changed everything. I marvel at the fact that like everyone else in the world, I had had some specific plans and intentions and was going about some of them and now, they do not matter in the slightest. My government have been absolutely amazing in their handling of the crisis, but a few citizens have shown their selfish sides by still congregating in churches and at impromptu fetes. That has been the most vexing, infuriating thing! There was even a daycare centre that the Minister of National Security had to close down. Why do some people not understand the severity of the situation is a head scratcher!We get up now and every day is a damn blessing! The situation feels so fraught with tension despite trying to just go about ones day. You wonder whether this unseen germ may be laying around on surfaces just waiting to greet you. My Aunt went out to the grocery store yesterday and I was jumpy about it. When she got back I policed her about washing her hands and taking her clothes off in the laundry room right away. It was a bizaare moment. It had been a long day for me, as a friend and his wife came into the country to 'surprise' his mother. They live in Atlanta, Georgia and when I saw the images of his return (on Facebook), I was livid. Neither he nor his wife self quarantined....no, they went to he other island and took pictures on the beach, then they went sight seeing and even took a picture with another couple whom I know, who they were hugging with no thought to social distancing. This sent me into one of my rare rages! I sent him a poster from the Minister of national Security demanding self quarantine and waited to make sure that he saw it and responded. I just had to do it! The idea that a simple decision like returning home can kill your family is too great to be polite about. Luckily he took heed. I really, really hope that they are alright and did not bring Covid-19 to their family that they wanted to surprise. We have to be vigilant right now. We know that although we have small numbers, we could see a rise in them. We can not afford to have a run where this is concerned because we only have so many alternative spaces to treat with the disease if it catches hold. However, amidst all of this, just as the Italian people have been so inspiring, there have been many pockets of good cheer and fun as we all stay at home that has helped this unique situation.

Covid 19's unexpected messages

With all of the world on pause because of the Corona Virus, I have found a certain calm amidst the storm. To me the fact that the whole world has had to stop and focus only on the present is a very good thing. Slowing ourselves down to a halt begs the questions of why do we consume so much? Why do we think that we have to rush to jobs that slowly kill us every day? We cannot spend quality time with those we love. The media that we hate, we also worship. Everything we are about is screwed up in some way. We import so much from far away places, we neglect what is close and belongs to us. If we have straight hair we want curly hair. We contort our bodies into the latest fashion that we must have right now to outdo that person over there. It is insanity. I like the fact that how we proceed is uncharted. I like the fact that the situation is writ large and scary and devastating and we cannot miss it. The tragedy is obvious. There are people right now terrified that they can have it and can pass it on to someone and kill that person. There are people battling it right now who may not survive it. Yet, their sacrifice is not in vein. I think that everyone out there who is ill and those who are helping to take care of them is a hero. I have never really sat down and given thought to the levels of sacrifice, true bravery of human beings on such a scale. I have looked at many, many times in history where I have marveled at groups of people who have fought and died and individual people who have triumphed through immence pressures. I don't think that I have ever looked at every citizen on the planet that way until right now.

earlier post now posting

I write a lot. But so often I can find that I am learning about myself in the process. Having stepped back from a job that I had been doing for ten years feels rather strange. After wanting a moment to myself to think about my next steps for my personal work, I now have all of the time in the world. With all of that comes the pressure to do things for maximum gain in all directions. It is March already. The CoronaVirus has the entire world up in arms. Yet, we are all tasked with staying responsible to ourselves, our families and our professions. This situation has been a true leveler in terms of humanity looking at itself as one people, despite the racism to one group. We are all in this together, and we are confronting working differently on a perminant basis, possibly even really not being so inclined to consume as insanely as we have for the last thirty years... looking at appreciating what we have in our own countries for a change. Anyway, enough soapbox pontificating! I am now working out what I want to do every day with all of the projects that I have that I want to complete and I am very mucho excited about that. I am also terrified too. So this entry is just an ice breaker to say Hellooooo March, I am marching into the month with my head held high.

sistah love

My sister surprised us with a visit a week ago and today she's extended her stay. Her being here has been a positive jolt to my system. I don't know how to describe it. In the simplest terms, just having her wider perspective has done so much for me. I am feeling better, more confident and just happy. We saw each other last year and we speak often, but to have her physical presence is great. She travelled to Bali this year, and she has come back with a very different outlook. To hear how much she now gets how energies work and is so much more mindful about what she wants to achieve and is accomplishing is infectious at the very least. We spoke about one or two people close to her, and it was insightful as well. One is always complaining that they are unwell, but will not work towards getting better, despite all that they have been told and know. The other person is an old flame that she has had a tendency to contact every time she comes. The third is someone I wrote about recently who she and I conclude actually hates women and himself. What talking about these people did for both of us this time is pinpoint exactly how we all can keep ourselves back. The first person needs to go on a diet. They prefer to sleep and to eat copious rounds of bacon and then they say that they have a back pain, night sweats. They hate vegetables and hop in an Uber every chance they can get. We now see that their behavior affects their job and their relationship. So if you feel that you can make an excuse in one part of your life...it spills over into every part of your life. The old flame she has realised is not changing for the better. Sadly she has left him behind longer than she had thought, and she has come to terms with the fact that some people are in your life at one time and not for another. The last person, is a relative. However, he has a pattern that screams cautionary tale. I appreciate that through these people I can look at myself, at all that I do in my life and I can make adjustments because of that.