It kinda feels like it’s all falling apart.
After a grueling, emotionally draining five year stint as a full time caregiver for my father in law, the frantic attempts to keep my career on track as a thirty-something year old writer and small time newspaper journalist, family members with mental health disorders and addictions, we enjoyed one glorious, strange vacation up to the Washington coast. That magic swiftly soured when we came home to face the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, mistakes made by legal counsel for the estate, and food and toilet paper shortages. Next up: complete job loss from all fronts because of the pandemic. I didn’t get any unemployment for an entire year. Which were promptly then frozen due to the suspicious activity sweep made by the EDD after too many scammers. The subsequent loss of my father in law after his sudden death on April 19, 2020, followed swiftly by the loss of my beloved grandfather, and this is all leading up to a month long wildfire (complete with actual fire tornadoes) that posterity will remember as the Loyalton Fire in August 2020.
We literally didn’t see the sun for a month straight. Our garden didn’t grow normally. The dust choked everyone and every creature, and every day I felt bad for the dozens of animals on neighboring homesteads, being blinded by endless cyclones of ash. The dog and bird waters turned to burning lye that entire month, because of the constant wind and ash. We watch the sun blot out at if covered by a lampshade from the cracked front door as a wall of dust roared across Long Valley, swallowing up highway 395 and any unfortunate souls on it. I panicked regularly because I could feel the air being sucked out of the room, the walls closing in, we couldn’t stop coughing, the old cracked seals in the windows and doors allowing in mounds of iron rich ash until we finally tacked up sheets over every window and did our best to keep the filter clean on our two air conditioners.
Yet, we experienced early freezes which took the majority of my tomato harvest in our first real outdoor garden. That’s another story- with photos- which I’ll link in when it’s all wrapped up. All I can say is, the best way to garden on the edge of the Lost Sierra is to utilize greenhouses. Our growing seasons are woefully unpredictable and seem to be getting shorter as the years go by.
This is followed by days of grief and depression, and clawing to hold on to any semblance of self. I’ve lost everything I define myself with at this point- so many labels and roles stripping me to the bone. After nearly a year of extreme caution, masks and staying strictly at home as much as possible, we still ended up getting covid. I was sick, but without exaggerating I can thank any deity listening for the life of my partner. He very nearly lost his life and if my love could have helped him get through it, I’m sure it would have, but truly I know it’s just luck. It’s all so random.
Back to business. This is a brief slice of the situation I currently find myself in- looking down the smoking barrel of losing our home, and the crushing of all of my castles in the sky. I’ve already experienced total homelessness (the living in a tent with two dogs in the snow and working multiple jobs type of homeless) and I can’t help but feel triggered by the events that seem to be so far beyond my control, and the statement that makes about my learned experiences as a homeless person in California is more than words. I’m still recovering from the virus and I’m exhausted with weird physical glitches, (yay, longhaulers!) I’m trying to avoid reacting from a place of fear, which again, triggers definite unhealthy coping skills to whisper in my ears, but I can’t help but wonder in my current state of mildly numbed panic what the hell is next for a woman with six rescue dogs, ten chickens, four ducks, three chukars, and one partner she loves very much. But why?!! Why me? *Runs screaming and naked into the forest*
Because sometimes life has other plans.
Or so they say, whoever they are. I’m choosing to believe that, against all of my pessimistic instincts- although I prefer to call them realistic, rather than pessimistic. Here’s the deal. I’m with a loving, amazing and supportive partner that works hard in fields that earn low wages, like so many in our world these days. I’m trying hard not to be disabled with some funky health stuff going on, including EDS (hello, Zebra fam!) and the energy I have goes towards work at my local newspaper, or rather, the website version it has evolved into post-covid. I’m lucky to have that source of income and the people I love at that company. I just fight these feelings of
Preemptive nostalgia.
I have no idea what I’m going to do, and where to go from here, and how to keep us all together and safe and happy. Not yet. But I’m damn well going to try. Living does after all mean that you are kind of obligated to pick yourself back up after the most recent boxing match and drink some water. Wipe your face. Smoke some weed if that’s your thing. If not, I recommend googling Square Breathing. Very helpful for panic attacks. If you have experienced anything like these feelings, let me know. When I get through this to the other side, I’ll be here to help hold the door for others. Telling people that when it all falls apart, it all falls together too.
