Fear

They say that we're living in historic times, and we should journal.

Well, okay. It's been literally a decade since I fell so hard into work that I forgot to write, and I forget how much it feeds my soul. But this has been hard, so hard, and it's not making it any easier to write about.

Let's start with anxiety mixed with survivor's guilt: I still have a job, I can still pay rent, I still have healthcare and groceries and I can pay bills and my home is pleasant and lovely.  I do not appear to have contracted the virus in the many pre-order activities we did.

We're now approaching a full month of shelter in place, and while I find that I'm starting to finally hit my stride in taking the time I need away from work, I'm also finding that the fear and waiting is ramping up, not down. The list of things I want to keep alive and somehow preserve keeps growing. The number of places and services, events and providers who I want to support is growing longer and this doesn't appear to be stopping any time soon. I am afraid that so much of what I loved in the last few years will be gone when we all are able to poke our heads out of hiding. I am so scared, and so overwrought, almost anything will make me cry and I *cannot* seem to stop.

And I'm not even on the front lines. I can't even imagine what's going on for my friends who are healthcare workers, delivery drivers, other essential services. I feel helpless and useless and terrified, and I see all the dreams and plans I had, that others had, foundations cracking in slow motion as the rentier class demands its pound of flesh, crumbling a little more to dust each week. What the opera, theaters, the little independent movie house that serves truffle popcorn, of our favorite Indian places, the all-beef ramen shop, our favorite coffee shops, the tiki bars we've come to view as home? What of the sweet lady who cleans my house, my acupuncturist, chiropractor, the fine arts museum and the science museums and the MOMA, the botanical gardens, the antique fair, the bakery that makes the amazing cinnamon bread, the coffee shop that holds kink events, the tech writer conference, Burning Man? What of the home of our own we'd thought to buy? What if it's all gone when we reemerge?

I am sitting here adrift, despite my own comforts.