F>CK FOMO

FOMO - Rooftop jump at pool party

I just turned down the opportunity to hang out with people I like and miss, after 16 months of very little seeing, not only them, but everyone! Friends. Family. Co-workers. I haven't been in person with them in over a year! I've only, in the last month, gotten a hug from someone outside of my husband after 15 months! 15 months without hugs, high fives, handshakes, and even limited touching similar surfaces. We've had no guests, nor repair people in our house for 16 months. I didn't go in my own backyard for six months because we are in a quadplex and our neighbors were going back there all the time and it required a touchings a gate to get in and out.

Yesterday, I ate out in a restaurant with friends for the first time in 16 months. First time eating out period and not doing take out. It was repeatedly awkward to get going and get seating. We still didn't want to eat indoors and, as a result, had to go to a second restaurant. Once at the second restaurant, another fumbling encounter occurred as we requested one of their many available outdoor tables. To our surprise, for some reason that required a managers involvement. It was all very confusing and tiring!

That alone is hard, but then I am told in two weeks my state - California - will open up without restrictions. Without restrictions for the first time in 16 months! A lot of change happens in 16 months!

This will all change while I still wear a mask AND face shield while teaching in person with all vaccinated people! While I teach in person, it is also simultaneously over Zoom with fifty percent of the class and instructors present elsewhere in the building. Normally I teach physical laboratory skills in a single room of 100 students over a four-hour period. But we are not living in normal times and now instead of being around 100 students, I teach in single room with 10 students while 5 different rooms spread out around the building teach the remainder of the students over two rounds and an eight-hour period. There are students that I don’t know what there chins and noses look like, but I know the rest of their bodies. There are other students that I don’t know what they look like from the shoulders up, but I know their chins, facial hair, noses, and facial expressions well.

This is complicated! How can I handle it all? It's low-grade CONSTANTLY stressful. For over 16 months! (When it wasn't a total shit show of intense "world is going to end" stressful.) Due to the stress, I have to rest more, which means being isolated for EVEN longer.

It was whiplash to go from so much social interaction to so much restriction and it is whiplash to go from being so isolated to attempt prior social levels. We need time. It is hard to admit, confusing, and not the most fun, but it is the healthiest.

When I said “no” today, I didn't know why. In fact, I never actually muster the “no” decision. I mostly communicated no by saying I was uncertain and acting indecisively. I couldn't clearly identify what I wanted or needed. So I stalled. My husband too. Finally my husband said if we were not sure, we should stay home. That felt good when he decided. It was the right decision.

Until he walked away, and dread filled me. Questions flooded and accusations my mind: What's wrong with me? This isn't the right decision. Maybe I'm anti-social. Maybe I'm flawed. I should want to be with people. Isn't that what I'm saying all the time? Do I really want to be with people? This was a missed chance to be with people. Your loneliness is on you. If you did things right you wouldn't be lonely. Since you're lonely we know you're not doing things right. I felt this right after making the decision that felt right, for a second.

The discerning feels so hard. I'm up and down. I know deep down that I'm supposed to be quiet and still right now, but I also don't know this. As I get to deeper truths, it seems the doubts also get deeper, in turn. It is a deep, deep work.

This is whiplash. We are injured; we need rehabilitation. We need rest. We need strengthening. We need time for the natural processes within us to take place. We need time for our minds to change. We need time for our bodies to change. I know because I'm a healer.

Fuck FOMO. Take cake of yourself.

May you always see the blessing,

Elle