Spring in the Midwest.
The coronacoaster keeps on rolling along. Yesterday was a low point. Today, the coaster seems to be slowly inching it’s way up the hill again. I’m not in a fantastic emotional space today, but I’m far better than yesterday.
One of the mood enhancers today was the sunshine. After a couple of damp, rainy days this morning dawned clear and sunny. The temperature actually climbed up near 80 degrees. The humidity from the rainstorms made it a bit uncomfortable, so I closed up my apartment windows and turned on the air conditioning for the first time this season – actually the first time since the early autumn.
Strangely, just a few days ago I closed up the windows so that I could turn on the heat because it was so cold and damp. So in a single week, I went from heat to air conditioning. Welcome to the schizophrenia of spring in the Midwest. Cold, hot, cold, hot. The weather seems to be following the same trajectory as my mood. Or perhaps my mood is following the same trajectory as the weather.
Throughout this quarantine, I have struggled with feelings of loneliness and isolation. I suppose that’s only natural since I live alone and have been stuck here in my apartment alone for nearly 10 weeks now. Lately, though, it feels somehow different. The sense of isolation has started to feel familiar to me and that is alarming. I don’t want this to become “normal” in any way. But the repetition of day after day after day of being in the same space and doing the same things has created the psychic equivalent of a “rut.”
It’s like a dirt road. If enough cars travel down that road, the ruts from the tires wear deeper and deeper and it becomes difficult to veer off of the track. I realized today that I have created a number of patterns that I was not even aware I had created. Things like my morning ritual, where I sit to do certain things, what I wear, how I set the table, etc.
I am usually not a fan of “change for change’s sake” but I think it’s time to do some serious rearrangement of things in my home. I am not quite sure what I can move around or how I can adjust my environment to do things differently, but tomorrow my primary goal will be to move my energy.
I have long been a fan of Feng Shui, so tonight I plan to break out one of my favorite Feng Shui books and start strategizing how to shift my energy. It may be small things, but it’s time for me to break out of these habitual patterns and begin to move my energy in more positive, forward-moving directions.
It’s only Quarantine if it comes from the Quarante province of France. Otherwise, it’s just Sparkling Isolation.