The Show Must Go On...?

It's terrifying to imagine in hindsight how we said so many times with so many years that any past year was the absolute worst. We said it before. We said it certainly in 2016 and years before and every single year since. And this year has been, without a doubt, unfathomably bad. This year has been something out of a H.P. Lovecraft nightmare slowly and surely stealing away our sanity a piece at a time. The horrifying part of this is that we all said this before, and it was nowhere near this bad then. So we're saying this now, and it's certainly true, but what holy Hell will be unleashed in our future to make us pity our past selves for saying it now?

Absolutely terrifying to imagine.

Heck, I'm getting this realization now. I thought at the beginning that this was horrible, but wouldn't last to summer. Then summer came and slapped me across the face for being a stupid bitch to think things couldn't be this bad for this long. Then the memes came out of "Don't Eff with my Halloween, ha ha," like it wasn't even a remote thought that this could last as long as Halloween. Halloween came and went, and we are in a time laughably called a second surge. Second surge? We never got out of our first; are you kidding me?!

As things crept onwards towards further doom, we all just prayed that the numbers wouldn't touch us, be us, or be our families. Working as close to the thick of it as I am (and I am not saying I am anywhere near the selfless soldiers at the last line of defense in our hospitals and clinic, but I do take the calls and hear the desperation on the lines as part of the healthcare side of things), I counseled, suggested, and even begged for those I loved to be safe, do what was necessary to be locked down, or at best be considerate. Please, God, just don't let it be my family.

Then it was my family. First it was second cousins. And stupid, arrogant me thought that this was going to be the case in my life. This was going to be so big, of course I was going to know a case. So here it was, and it's done...right? But it wasn't. It hit my grandfather's house and got him, my daddy, and my uncle. I cried, I prayed, I pounded my fists on the ground that it came to my men over in that house. It didn't stop there, either! It got my immune suppressed Aunt. Stop! Just make it stop! No MORE!

Last Saturday I released my second book, and I am very proud. I had planned the event, the "party" online, for over a month. Three days before the launch party, my grandpa's covid gave him pneumonia. They took him away in an ambulance. Then my dad started fainting, and I told him to go to the ER too. After fighting and pleading and begging and imagining all the ways he could be hurt, I finally convinced him to go in too. The hospital said I saved his life. He almost died. I almost lost my dad. And then the day of the event, I get a call from my mom (my precious, wonderful mom) that the pain in her leg was so excruciating that I had to take her to the ER. Three hospitals within three days all lined up to my event.

Who cares...the event isn't important. My family is important. It was just a looming shadow putting further pressure on all the situations. Show must go on, right? On top of everything...EVERYTHING...my event crashed and burned with technical difficulties. I had to go to plan B that originally didn't exist and took me the rest of the day to complete. All of this existed and happened and hit and hurt, and that's not to mention the insane rambling of someone I watched over, protected, and loved all my life turn her bitchitude up to 11. Because she did, we saw, and though she is what she is and should be expected, it hurt and the fact that it still can pisses me off.

Now my aunt is in the hospital because of Covid. Mom, Dad, and Grandpa are out, but she she's in. At this point, it feels like every day it's something new, but I haven't broken down once. Sure, I woke up two mornings ago with a full blown panic attack I had to medicate for. Sure, I tend to find my lip quivering for a second before going away leaving the thought, "What was that?" All of this could very well still hit waiting for just the right fray in the foundation of the tightrope I walk. Or maybe it won't. Maybe all this I felt in the last two weeks (two weeks the heaviest, but let's be honest, the whole damned, stupid year) that hit me like that one time Homer Simpson was a boxer will just settle and form a rock in my core that I'll just carry as part of myself until my own insides slowly eat it or scar over it.

So all of this was insane word vomiting. However, I cannot be the only one. I cannot possibly be the only one going through their life, their work, their day just a butterfly's wings away from Shining level breakdown. So I won't cut a bit of it. Because here is MY word vomit; here is my splatter of the holiday letdown. I didn't get to hug my grandpa, either of them, and who knows how many Thanksgivings I have left with them. You did this, 2020! You did this to me, you did this to them, YOU DID THIS TO US!

Then the end of a little steam letting out through a blog, a telephone call, a text, a scream into the pillow....whatever it is for you, the steam is released. And it's yours, there before you, and you own it. Looking at it, you know then that it is nowhere NEAR the whole amount of pressure that NEEDS to be let out. This steam escaped, this pressure was released, and good for you. But it's not all of it, is it? Because even if you cried yourself into a coma, it's not enough to make up for a lost Holiday, a child asking why they couldn't trick or treat, a family member telling you that your staying away for the holiday for their safety is an overreaction, and it's damn sure not enough to release the pain of not having hugged your best friend for almost ten fucking months!

So here is the end of mine. Wait, did I say that before? Maybe...yes, kind of. The end of a blog like this is usually wrapped up with inspiration, advice, life revelation or whatever. But this year has been one looming shit-show after another. Who's to say that I have ANYTHING worth summing that up. Whatever is coming, I don't know what to say that would help or inspire. I certainly don't have anything to say that hasn't been said before. Be kind to each other, mask up, stay distant, don't be a twat...all the usual's going around. Maybe I don't have advice, but I will say that I'm here. If whoever is reading needs a shoulder, I've got two. If anyone wants to know if they aren't alone in their own insane, desperate chaos feelings over the world, you just read the proof that you aren't alone. Maybe just showing who I am might help someone else out there know that their own crap feelings over this crap situation we find ourselves in isn't that crazy, or at least not singularly felt. We're all here, and it sucks so hard.

I want to hug my best friend.

I need to go be with my grandparents while I can.

I want my babies to get out of this isolation that is warping them painfully.

I want this to end.

Most of all, I want us all to see the other side of this together. Please.