I spent the morning outside today, clearing the vegetable beds (meant to get it done last fall, but it never happened) and putting in the seedlings: squash of various kinds, cucumber, tomatoes. (This was probably inadvisable because I woke up yesterday with an ear infection. Better today. Hopefully the exertion doesn't make it worse again, but it had to be done, because there's a timing for these things.)
Before this year, I've had vegetable gardens three times. Once in NC pre-kids, and once last year, when we got invaded by tomatoes that wouldn't stop till first frost. Oh, cucumbers too, but the tomatoes were outright hostile in over-producing.
This is one thing that has changed since 2020. Objectively, I know that five tomato plants, three cucumber plants and a bunch of squash aren't going to save us from starvation. Heck, even the madly laying quail (no really. They do two eggs each a day I swear.) But I feel an utter lack of trust in the food being in the store when needed. Planting is anxiety-calming, more than anything else.
There are other things that have changed. We now don't really go out unless it's for absolutely necessary shopping/picking up something or eating out, or church. We used to go out for all sorts of things, from long and interesting walks, to just exploring a new area, to -- even -- museums, etc.
Now, sure, part of this is the move, though there are museums and zoos within driving distance, and we used to drive to Denver from the Springs for this, so it's not a problem. The problem is internal. Or perhaps just something shifted. I no longer feel the need to go out and be around people even passively. I think I know why. I think I feel betrayed. And also guilty. Neither of which is sane, and more on it later.
Part of the problem is that all the things we loved to do, our spontaneous fun outings, like going to a diner at midnight to plot is impossible in the post 2020 world. And not just because we moved. We're in a smallish (compared to Denver) town, but not so small it shouldn't by rights have at least a 24/7 greasy spoon. I used to brag I could be released to the wild anywhere in the US and find the best one in a half hour range within a day. This was true, and not only because I had an affinity for decent diners, but also because there were so many. Now, even in Denver, our old hangout, Pete's Kitchen, closes (I think at 10, except on weekends when it closes at midnight? I think that's it. We were shocked when we went back.) And throughout the country, in smaller places, a lot of them have just closed. (Partly I suspect because the clientele are mostly those who have had to cut out eating out, not merely "cut back" as we have. Though we have a plan for our entertainment budget. It's just going to take time to get it going. Yes, merchandise, including t-shirts, etc. but also hand made stuff. I just need some time.)
The thing is, taken in aggregate, our lifestyle has changed almost 100%. I truly can't underline how much it's changed, or how strange it is. It's particularly strange because I'm not climbing walls, which used to be my response to not getting out of the house for a couple of days. (Though to be fair, I'm outside a lot. I have the tan to prove it. Farming is not something to do inside, in this house.)
Now, of course, things change, and as the newly empty-nesters we are, it was going to change anyway. (We were semi-empty nesters for years, due to the fact our previous house had a spacious and independent basement apartment where first one kid, then the other lived. But it turns out semi-empty is not empty. It's different. Even with younger son living closish-by we don't see him every day. (Though we tend to talk everyday, for at least a few minutes.) Which means our life is more us-oriented now. And it would have changed.
But I can't rightly explain how radical a change this is.
Add to it that I don't like large gatherings or even small ones much anymore. Or at least, I get the horrors before any gathering of any size. I have found that small gatherings of friends for dinner/hanging out are actually good for me. I just resist them before they happen. And psyching myself up for cons is so DIFFICULT.
The not liking to be out, even in the middle of strangers/seeing strangers is because I realized I'm made at strangers in general for falling for the Covidiocy and at the same time feel guilty I didn't SOMEHOW prevent the lockdowns. How could I have prevented them? No rational way for me to even know how to. I just feel I should have. SOMEHOW. (Did I say this was in any way rational?) So a lot of the people watching no longer interests me. Now, how good this is for my mental health, I don't know. I know that I used to need a minimum amount of seeing people I don't live with. I suspect I still do, but am suppressing it.
Anyway, my scars are minor. The lifestyle I arrived at is functional.
Besides the fact of all the friends who died because of that nonsense: because no medical checkup, because were vulnerable to covid and real treatment wasn't offered, because... And besides their having used the "emergency" to seize control of the country and destroy everything, I emerged on the other side sort of okay.
A lot of people's scars from the last four years are bigger and more obvious.
The scars fall into two groups: the people who know it was a scam, many of whom knew it from the beginning, others who gradually caught one.
They are suffering various forms of fatigue. They're mostly tired of being so incredibly angry and having nowhere to put it. It becomes a form of stress.
On top of which they no longer trust... anything, really. Most of us -- because I fall in this group -- are disturbed to find ourselves looking at most conspiracy theories we used to dismiss out of hand and going "OTOH... 2020." A short list of things we no longer trust includes various authorities from religious to scientific to anything in between. We've gone way past trust but verify to "Don't trust, verify, and dig past initial seeming confirmation before you allow it might be true.
Thing is, once you've seen the authorities running around with their pants on their head, you'll never see the the same way again.
To us the last four years weren't shocking in what happened, so much, only the magnitude of it. "Government oversteps" is not a shock for those of us raised in the cold war. But to see the entire west go nuts over a danger that wasn't, and the level of complicity from every authority and institution (even as the individuals often rebelled, of course.) was mind boggling.
So what it left us with was a profound distrust of every authority, even the ones we thought were okay before.
Meanwhile a minority in the us but PROBABLY a majority abroad -- this is hard to know for sure as their news are more tightly controlled than ours -- think they lived through the equivalent of the black plague and that the authorities were wonderful in getting us through it.
Then there are the even smaller minority who are running around still wearing masks and convinced they'll die at any minute.
How those later two views survive without piles of bodies at the street corner I don't get!
So we're all running around with different sorts of scars. I'm tempted to say us skeptics are the most functional to emerge from this, but you know even we have fractures.
How it's all going to play out as the loonies in control become ever crazier I don't know. They should know not to mess with people who aren't exactly sane. But they don't seem to realize there's any danger.
Interesting times ahead. Keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark and be not afraid.
As for the anger, I don't know what to tell you. Mine is barely under control as is. All we can do is keep on and try not to lose our minds.
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