What's Up With Me?

I have some favorite blogs I read every day, or as often as I can.  These days I'm spending A LOT of time, I mean A LOT, on the internet, reading things I normally don't read. 

I have very little focus.  My mind is on something, then I get up to get a cup of tea or a glass of water and poof!  My mind wanders to something else and I am suddenly cleaning off the counter or picking up some knitting and an hour later I realize that I'm still thirsty and I forgot all about the tea or water.

My brother Ken used to be the sweetest child, he still is a very nice man, but as a child he would always, always, run around doing things the older boys or Mom or even I asked him to do without a second thought to why we didn't do them ourselves.  But invariably he would be off on the errand before you finished telling him what you wanted. 

For instance, Mom would say "Kenny, go downstairs to the cellar and bring me back a jar of peaches", but at "...cellar" he would already be at the bottom of the basement stairs!  Then he'd yell up the steps "What did you want again?"

He made us laugh, then he'd laugh too, and eventually Mom would have the peaches and he'd be off on whatever the next thing was that would catch his attention.

Kind of like that movie where the dog goes "squirrel!"

That's me these days.  No focus.  Scatterbrained.  Unable to concentrate on much of anything for a long period of time.  Except for the hypnotizing black box in the livingroom (TV) or the small white screen on the computer.  Rabbit holes of mesmerizing continuous streaming.  And its not as if there's anything that's so fascinating or enriching going on in front of me.

25 actors whose noses have been fixed.  40 ways to clean your toilet with things from your pantry.  100 best movies of 1938.

I'm making those things up, but they probably could be found with a simple google search!

One day I ran across an interview with some doctor somewhere who said that right now we're going through a grieving period for life as it used to be.  The new normal has no finite length and so we're mourning our previous normal.  This made perfect sense to me, because right now we're in the first stages... shock and denial.  No wonder we're all a little unfocused and crazy!  We're in shock!

The stages are shock, denial, anger, guilt, sorrow and depression, acceptance and finally engagement in life again.  According to experts everyone grieves in their own way, and the stages don't necessarily go in order.  Nor are there time limits on how long anyone stays in each stage.  It all depends on the person and the circumstances and what else is going on in the world.

So I'm accepting the fact that I'm not really myself at the moment.  I'm a slightly befuddled version of myself who's just trying to cope the best way I can.  My normally full social calendar is temporarily curtailed and I'm spending lots of time watching meaningless YouTube videos and reruns of TV shows.  I'm helping my granddaughter with math homework over the phone, and not hugging anyone other than the hubster, and him not that often because he needs his personal space.

<sigh>

So, Rita it's OK if you cry.  We're in mourning.  It WILL end, eventually.

To all my friends, I miss you tons!  You can hug me later...

Grieve on.