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15. Going Nowhere

Updated: May 2, 2020


It is difficult to know when you have arrived.

Written Tuesday, January 7, 2020 / Day 148 / Late Evening


The contradiction of the phrase “going nowhere” really fits my life at the moment. Today was the sixth day of my self-imposed exile to try to rid myself of the vestiges of my December sickness. It’s that leftover cough and congestion that was not going away.


Perhaps I overreacted to the entire thing but I did not want to relapse and get something worse. My poor neighbor was diagnosed with double pneumonia (both lungs) and she had said she felt fine. I was feeling fine, hmmmmm.


I approached my exile as a full fledged cold - which it was not. I pulled out every trick my wife had taught me. Day after day I just went full force.


Monday night was a bad evening for some reason. But gargling with warm salt water (one of her tricks which works quite well) in the early morning brought on a glorious period of sleep which felt like a healing salve.


Woke up at 11:30 quite amazed. I now had the resolve to get a second opinion on where I was - so I scheduled an appointment with a local clinic for mid-afternoon.


The results were quite encouraging. Clear lungs, good oxygen levels, bp good and overall condition not too bad. It is just what my overactive imagination needed to hear. It settled me quite a bit and encouraged me to start to plan for total reentry into my minimalistic life on Thursday.


So I logged in yet another full week of being totally alone in my totally alone world. I received many calls on my birthday which were encouraging.


But as my world has unfolded - there is a shallowness to everything.


Life is a lot less satisfying in a sense. Trying to run my life with half a life may have something to do with that reality.


If there is a lesson in having two full weeks alone I imagine it is that I got along well operationally. I ran most things before so running things now is not unusual.


With my current attitude of not really caring about anything at all it is just a bit too much to take without a diversion or two.


I go along for a period of time and then there is just a breakdown.


The absurdity of my life now.


The constant reminders that she is not here and will never be.


The moments that stop me in my tracks.

Perhaps they will continue to be - but without something to dilute them - the effects are quite unsettling.


So tomorrow I will be celebrating reemergence. Time to peek out of the prairie dog hole and see what’s out there. Finally emerging from below ground to ground level.


It’s not exactly soaring with the eagles or anything, but at least now I’ll be able to crawl like I was crawling.


When you don’t have much - even a shadow of something is something.


So onward I go. Onward to something.


When you live where I do that’s almost a goal.

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