Living In The In-Between Days

Sheltering in place results in some bizarre perceptions and reactions to the world of time. It's more than just needing to find new ways to keep track of times and dates. Time compresses and expands so it's difficult to even know how many days or hours have passed to be kept track of. I find myself having to go over these pages to figure out whether something happened a week or two months ago. But once I do, surely that isn't right....?

Even things with more finite time limits still tend to leave me hanging. Take the roof. We knew which day the yard crew was going to trim overlapping pine tree branches, but were they due imminently or not even this day. (It was Thursday.) Then there's the insurance adjuster's visit, with results coming back in "a few days", which we have to wait through before a few more days have to elapse until we can hear the final estimate and things can be ordered. Then it's about another week before the new roof is on.

Will that still be May? I think it's supposed to.

It happens with little things too. Wow - have I been going through that bottle of pill this fast? Check the refill date on the label... and another bottle... OK, two more trips to the pharmacy have to be planned in the next two weeks, and they can't overlap because that insurance has rigid rules. (So who abuses statins and thyroid pills so they can't be refilled further from their refill dates anyway? ) I've taken to looking in the bottom of the bottles each day to try to plan it better. Nope. Still two trips.

Other medical stuff clutters the calendar. I have a series of two appointments coming up, first a test and the following week discussing the results. Unlike other appointments, these aren't cancelable. Hopefully no actions need to follow, but it's still a reason to keep track. It may actually get easier if/when more appointments are added. Steve will need appointments to help figure out some things that are going on with him now. My been-there-think-I-know-something diagnosis is that there will be another pacemaker in the family soon. We're keeping track of BP, pulse rate, and O2 blood levels at home these days, and his pulse has been as low as 41 bpm twice in the last few days, 45 one other time. When that happened to me, it got a lot of attention! Along with a battery and some other stuff. Nice scar too.

And if he's like me in the same way, the pulmonologist won't be needed once the heart pacing is corrected. So of course, that's the appointment that's scheduled before the cardiologist's one. Do they do that on purpose?

By now you may be wondering about another possible culprit, but yesterday we received word that his covid 19 test showed negative!

Other kinds of reminders pop up to show time is skewed. Foods disappear from the refrigerator when we think it was too soon ago that we shopped for it. We couldn't possibly have eaten it all already, could we? Asking myself why there is so much laundry makes exactly as much sense as simultaneously wondering why there isn't more. Dirt on walls where hands touch surprises me by how much time must have fled since those places were last washed - and aren't we washing our hands more now anyway?

I used to always wake up knowing which day of the week it was and what that meant for what I needed to do for work. Even recently, I was tuned in to the club schedule and my responsibilities. Now it takes reflection, not just which day, but which month? Season? At least the clock on my headboard offers the time so I can decide whether to come back to bed after my bathroom trip. I don't need to figure out how much light is coming in from outside and put that in its proper date slot to make that decision. Just being tired or not doesn't count any more.

Even waking itself has changed. My body was attuned to the alarm, and I would reliably pop into full alertness about 5 minutes before it went off. Now I awaken being aware of having some knowledge of the last several minutes and my increasing level of "here-ness". This was what I was dreaming. Those were the noises I heard over the last several minutes. And this is finally me. I wonder which is weird, the pop into alertness before the alarm, or the slow dawning?

Until this week I was sure that garbage pickup days were a way of keeping track. Then yesterday I took a bag of garbage out. Being Thursday, the can was supposed to have been emptied around 6 AM. This was afternoon, and the previous three bags were still in it. Lucky they are all small. I'm confident we can survive on the remaining space until Monday's pickup. Then I call the company.

Now I see a new problem. I know I was told twice yesterday that it was Friday. I recall both conversations and why it was necessary to establish the day. But I found myself fighting to find ways to prove to myself that it was really Thursday. None of them worked out, of course, because it really was Friday.  But if you read the previous paragraph, you'll see I'm still doing it. I know if I just turn on the TV all the programming will be screwed up because it's Saturday. Though, yes, our garbage did miss getting picked up. I double checked with Steve that he hadn't taken three more bags out after an actual Thursday pickup.

This all leaves me with two choices. I can find a new way to keep track of time for the duration. Or I can decide it rarely matters. Hmmmm......  Let me decide tomorrow. Whenever I think that is.

Oh, but one way time is crystal clear. You can't have missed how Trump refuses to wear a mask when around other people.  While some speculate it's because it would show the orange makeup, his stated reason is that wearing one would make him look ridiculous. Baby, that ship has lonnnnnng since sailed. I mean, way back even before all that birtherism nonsense back when Obama took office, way back to the first time anybody noticed him, ever. Trump is just simply ridiculous and can't run away from it, not even when he's demonstrating how evil he also is. Always will be. Somebody will be sure to put laughing, falling down clowns on his gravestone. Bet they'll be wearing masks though. Wouldn't want the Trump to wear off on them.