As happy as I am about last week--the safe inauguration of a new president and our first woman, Black, South Asian vice president--I'm still having trouble sleeping. The moment I turn off my lamp my heart rate speeds up.
I'm doing all the things insomniacs are supposed to do--I don't read in bed, never look at my phone. I stop screen time an hour before I want to sleep. I drink a lot of water, sometimes I take an allergy pill to knock me out. I keep the room dark and cool and run a noise machine.
Still, I lie there awake, electric, hot, worried. I don't fret about it--I can't--but it's not very restful.
The events of 1/6/21 aren't over. We still don't know the full story of who plotted this, who attempted to carry it out. There's not much time to legislate tighter voting laws and bring to justice those who were violent. I wonder about my part in re-imagining this world and hope I can make some changes to my own life, soon.
In the meantime, I reflect.
11: we're on month 11 of lock down in my state. (Innocently, I asked a friend in Seoul something about their lock down and they said, not unkindly, "We never had one. People here wear masks.") I don't qualify for a vaccine yet, but I know others who have gotten theirs--a friend in their 70's, friends and family who are front line medical workers.
17: the number of Zoom chats I've had with my sisters. We actually talk more, one sis pointed out, than in pre-pandemic times. This isn't counting the family and coast-to-coast family chats.
800: face masks sewed for a mutual aid group.
12: pounds lost. I can't eat when I'm stressed and this year has been the most stressful in quite awhile. Also, being on the bus scares me, and so I walk, if I can. Some days, two and a half or three hours, to get where I'm going. My family jokes about my love of a death march but they don't realize that walking a long way helps immensely with anxiety. When you're tired, when you're moving, you can't worry so much.
1: covid-19 tests. So far, negative.
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