Oh my two years since my last post

That title sounds like I am in confession. Feels like confession just a bit. I am trying to get into writing, I am trying to write more. I will hopefully write more. I am in an actual writing for publication class. I paid the tuition fee because I was hoping to rekindle my writing. It is working, slowly, ever so slowly. So here is my attempt to break out of my frozen state.

I am frozen

I can move and talk but I am still frozen

I reach for words to teach lessons to students

Some are also frozen and can hear as I talk, but don’t seem to internalize even the most mundane of words and phrases

We are frozen, Sometimes we thaw, but not for long

Some of my students say they are just done with all of it, ready to go back to normal

But what is normal? My normal is not their individual normals. 

I sit frozen with my mask on as I teach virtually

I stand frozen with my mask on as I teach in person

Why aren’t you engaging the students, why … can’t … you … engage … them?

I sit frozen as I listen to the evaluation that will lead to no longer teaching here

I am frozen

I sit on my couch frozen teary-eyed watching my old Emma move about the apartment slowly and deliberately. Blind as the proverbial bat, but without the sonar to help her navigate. 

I sit frozen watching Emma try to stand up, try to walk, try to move about without walking into obstacles.

I do not move the obstacles in the hope that she can get the routine of the apartment and navigate without the sonar that all of my other blind dogs seemed to have had.

I sit frozen as she pees or poops and then falls into it because she is losing the ability to use her back legs. 

I sit frozen as I make the decision that this is how she is telling me it is time. Just like her to be so ambiguous. My other dogs, blind or not, looked me straight in the eyes and told me, “My companion it is time.” Their eyes saying it, “I have lived a long and happy life.” 

Am I frozen?

The world, or at least my small part of it, doesn’t likely see it unless they know me. I see the ads on TV and memes illustrating how people like me, with depression and/or anxiety, present a relaxed/happy public face to others. 

So while I feel frozen in place, others do not see me that way. 

Todd, my neighbor, sees and mentions it to me when we have gone shopping over the last year. 

He sees the freeze I try to conceal. 

His empathy helps most times. But I am still frozen.

To thaw the freeze I need to get out more, not with people just yet, but maybe hikes alone or perhaps I can borrow Anubis. Anubis is always so delighted to see me.

Anubis thaws me.