Limbo

What are we going to do?
We've opened the door, now it's all coming through...

"How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful", Florence + the Machine



Today I found myself sending LinkedIn invites to old college friends from the Honors Program at the UPR, members of my old tribe. I miss them, or rather the idea of them, the possibility of finding myself through their eyes. Who knows what they would think of me nowadays, if they remember anything at all. They'll probably take one look at my profile and yawn, and no lifeline will pull me out of the fog. They have all gotten PhDs and done interesting, even important things in the same span of time I have failed at two marriages, made a career out of Excel pivot tables and become a master at predicting the immediate past.

As my eyesight has gone south, so has my memory. I can't be trusted to keep all this shit straight. I need friends to tell who I am. But I have no friends. Or rather, the few I have barely know me. I have done a great job of limiting access to what's really on my mind and curating my persona so as to avoid controversy. But the result is that nobody fucking cares, and I am slowly vanishing into the ether. I am becoming translucent. Not long from now, only my cats will be able to see me.One day this specific recipe of neuroses and idiosyncrasies will simply disappear. There will be traces here and there, pieces of a puzzle, mostly in the memory of my girls and my exes.

I should have been paying more attention to building memories, maybe trying to practice some mindfulness, but instead two, perhaps three decades have been lived on cruise control.

Social distancing is easy for semi-hermits

I had the flu at the end of February. I get the flu shot every year in the fall, as most people in high risk groups do. By the end of February, the vaccine's effectiveness must be minimal, as the influenza A hit me like a ton of bricks.

I can't recall feeling sicker in a very long time, perhaps ever. It took me over a week to get back to a semblance of normal. It's scary to think that scores of people lose their lives to the flu every year.

I'm scared of SARS COV 2. I'm scared of catching it and getting the disease. I am barely recovered from the flu. I am struggling with seasonal allergies. I have not done a breathing treatment for asthma in days, but every day is a struggle to breathe deeply. And that is with clear lungs. I don't want to picture the struggle if a lower respiratory illness is thrown in the mix. I've had pneumonia before.

Authorities are asking people to practice social distancing. Our school district has cancelled classes through April 10th. The city and county have ordered bars and clubs closed, and restaurants to close their dining areas and only provide drive-through/pick up/delivery orders. My company has instructed all personnel to work from home, unless their presence in the office is required to perform their job (labs, manufacturing, some customer service roles).

None of this impacts me greatly, except for the madness of crowds hoarding basic goods. My daughter, a teenager, is capable of amusing herself and knows better than to interrupt me during business hours. I've been working from home since the day before I got flu symptoms. I telecommute more than half the time anyway, and have my home office set up for this, so this is not hard for me. I also have a tendency to stay home for the most part when I am off work. Still, everything feels so weird when it is not by choice. It's scary to think every single outing puts me at risk of severe illness or possible death.

Wistfulness

We want to be seen. We recoil at the idea of being invisible. Oh, but we are.
Each year that passes we become lighter, shadowier. We become stronger and clearer about ourselves, just in time to dissolve in their eyes.

Every wrinkle, every age spot carries the entire history of us, even the faintest parts. But only we can see. The book has but one reader.