What Covid gave me

 Three days after Christmas at the end of the work day I felt like I was getting my annual Christmas cold. By the time I got home I knew I was going down.  The next day I did a rapid test at a local urgent care that was negative but woke up Wednesday significantly worse so I did a longer response test. I was called Friday night with a positive Covid result.  I had a fast descent into a total shut down of function and began 3 weeks of the most difficult sickness I've ever had. I had terrible dizziness and a loss of balance. Brain fog, fever, loss of cognitive function, no appetite and extreme fatigue. I literally curled in a ball and slept. Ate tiny bits of food that tasted like chemicals and could only drink water or 7 up.  The tv was on but I couldn't even concentrate to watch a thing, same with reading or even looking at my phone.  It was like being in a weird dark  cave of nothing making sense sickness.   It lasted 3 weeks and I did have lovely support to get me through but it was a hard solitary brutal journey. I'm good now, a month after coming out of it and that too wasn't super easy. I feel oh so fortunate that I had no breathing issues and was safe riding out as I did at home. It feels amazing to have my feet under me again.

    There was however something that I gained in the middle of all that.   After a long nap one day I had a weird possibly fever induced vision of myself.  Older with long grey hair in messy braid a light filled  kitchen arranging flowers barefoot in a homemade  yellow print dress ( know this because it was quite clearly made with a vintage sheet I have been saving to make a dress, weird but awesome). I was happy and peaceful and content. I felt an overwhelming sense of peace in my dream/vision and a wave of knowing washed over me.  I saw myself happy and light, that has been hard to find.  And I knew that it was time to create, arrange and build a life that feels more like that than what it's been.  I'm not sure of anything other than life is short, we don't have time to live in ways that don't feel right, in ways that are like sandpaper to our souls.  I call it itchy sweater living, always feeling like I have to defend or explain myself, never completely at peace.  Not how it should feel...at least in my soul.  

    So what to do with all that.... I'm letting myself imagine how it would feel to feel light and free from things and situations that are itchy sweaters, toxic things that  take up space that isn't meant for them, space meant for sunlight and calm.  We all have burdens and things to do that don't feel fun or easy.  That's is certainly life. But we do all deserve to live, work and be in ways that don't rub like sandpaper.  I'm tired of the to the bone weariness I feel so much of the time as I know I'm living against my better self.  I am letting my imagination, my knowing and my daring come out to sort through what's next and good and feels safe. In a print sundress, arranging flowers barefoot in a light filled kitchen.....Life is short y'all....that is the deal.  Live life that feels like a soft tee shirt not an itchy sweater.  You can quote me on that.  One of my favorite lyrics..."You belong somewhere you feel free" ~Tom Petty, Wildflowers. It takes a bit of fire and fierce wild heartedness to fight for all that peace and light, I have  wondered if I have any of that left in me, that's the truth. It's messy and sad and the unraveling of what I'm used to and letting my knowing take charge is NOT EASY... it's not supposed be.  But what has happened in the reckoning of my own story is the energy and hope and trust in the vision and what it had to tell me.  Not sure if I will ever be in the kitchen I saw, but that was just how imagination and vision work, they give you what you need for the traveling you will do. That's where I will get the fire and energy and trust needed. I do have all I need and I have a firm real life plan fueled by my fever dream vision.   And there it is...

                            " Because once we feel, know and dare to imagine more for ourselves, we cannot                                     unfeel, unknow or unimagine.  There is no going back" ~Glennon Doyle, Untamed

    And lastly, I refuse to say it's too late. It's not.  That's it and no discussion about too late ever again, please don't do that to yourself either. Too late is a lie....

Live Wildly

Barbara

p.s.  do yourself a favor. Read Untamed by Glennon Doyle.  Shake it all up, you will love what falls out.    https://www.amazon.com/Untamed-Glennon-Doyle-Melton/dp/1984801252