time is bendy

A few unfinished thoughts but I'm trying my best to keep putting something down so that my brain doesn't drown and/or just put things into the already overfull "we can think about this later" bin.

I proposed seven years ago (I was going to say today which seems true for me but technically it is yesterday now, Star Wars day, May the Fourth be with you, which is not why I did on that day, in fact it was literally that the jewelry shop let me know that the ring resizing for the engagement ring was finished and I literally dropped everything and picked it up and met with Cam's dad for lunch to ask permission to marry her and then picked her up and took her to Beresford where we had our first serious conversation and anyway it certainly made it easy to remember the date).  Since that day, I went through a life where we were planning a long life together with a long engagement and a summer to honeymoon and find a house and take our time to do all the things.  I then went through a life of returned cancer in a mass in her sternum and treatment plans that started after Thanksgiving and moving and downsizing the wedding because there were three weeks of relative freedom from treatment and planning to do a big party celebration later.  Then there was Bone Marrow Transplant Life that I still can't wrap my mind around, both the process and even the coming home and becoming an untrained health care provider and cleaning all the things.  And then there was the life immediately after her death and trying hard to follow God but also just trying to survive and now I'm in Jacksonville.  And then there's been the past five years of living here and being a performer and a pastor and I'm still not really sure what I'm doing in either of those worlds.  And now there's coronalife where I am working nightshift and wondering when this will all end and knowing that it won't "end" as much as it will slowly fizzle into an ultimate new normal that should last a good long while once this pandemic is under control.

So six lives in seven years.  Pretty soon I'm going to be a cat.

The other thing is a couple days ago at work I had my first physical contact since this all happened.  It was not anything crazy, I went to ask the rebin guy if he had seen sewing needles and between masks and wearing ear plugs and it's just loud in the warehouse he said "huh?" and put his arm around my shoulders as he leaned in to hear what I was saying.  He was an older guy, it was a perfectly normal and somewhat fatherly gesture, and in any other circumstance I probably wouldn't have even seen it on my radar.  But I had several reactions in a short period: comfort, concern, aversion, confusion about all of the previous.  I'm a touch person, and in the correct context, even a stranger's touch is not anywhere near a red flag in my mind.  But touch during this pandemic where we are told we are supposed to stay six feet apart (which even with the independent nature of as well as the physical distribution of people in my job is still almost impossible) is a strange thing.

And also related to that last thought, I bought a weighted blanket, and I love it, but it's strange.  It certainly isn't human but it gives me a similar sensation to ASMR, except all over, and if I'm under it for a long time and then go to stand up I don't have complete control of my physical facilities for a little bit, which I sort of don't like.  So it's nice to be under the blanket and just stay there, and I'm having to learn to only use it when I don't have to do much but sit in my recliner (whether I am working on my computer or on the phone or whatever.  I made the mistake of getting under it before a shift and I was not ok until at least an hour into work).

I guess I'm looking forward to having two days off?  I'm looking forward to not having responsibilities tomorrow at least.  And I ended up as a down stacker so my body will appreciate two days to recover.