How have I been keeping sane? It has been less than two weeks since we decided to isolate. As I have lightly mentioned, one might be wise to question my sanity on a good day.

A friend asked me today how I am staving off insanity. So far I have spent every fucking day with bouts of wanting to run. I want to run away from parenthood - run away from spousehood. I want to escape the kitty litter box, dishes, laundry and impending spring yard work. That's my fairly normal existence, though, so this should be no problem - just carry on.  Our schedule, though, the one that did keep me more grounded and normalish looking to the untrained eye, completely and instantly fell away last week. Our Monday homeschool co-op, Tuesday acting, Wednesday horseback riding, Girl Scouts and ballet and Thursday handwork (knitting, etc.) all disappeared.  All of that farming out of responsibility, as I prefer to think of it, came to an end. I was left with my own self-loathing over never quite feeling ready to take on the responsibility of being my child's everyday companion, time manager, educational accomplice and guide (even though I have been all of those things for her, for her entire nine years of out of belly existence).  I see myself as a determined parent with strong, clear feelings on child rearing, and, hypocritically enough, a complete and utter slacker in the actual implementation of all of these things.  That's why I do the farming out.  I know I can't  handle constant all day long interaction.  I love my kid so much, and yet, under these current circumstances especially, I am always feeling the need to escape her and hide. I am just not a big people person anymore. 

My daughter's outgoing nature is exactly me until I turned six and my parents' marriage got stupid and everyone got stupid about it and everyone forgot to invest deeply in the children's emotional well-being because they were being stupid and selfish.  My sister told me several years ago that, when our parents told us that they were, in fact, getting a divorce, I changed and was never the same again. I had, at some point, made my Dad promise me that they wouldn't divorce, so when that reneging shit fell from his tongue, my sense of trust and my equilibrium were shattered. I have struggled with those initial emotional fractures, along with other later ones, ever since. I look at my child and, at the same time that her outgoing, people loving nature is completely familiar to me, it only feels familiar at a distance. I now only pretend to be open - pretend to not hate people.  The only time being open and loving feels like part of my nature is when I get to connect with my few chosen people.  It has taken me so long to find good friends in the world, and I love them. 

As I was floundering in this abrupt end to normal, others were thinking and planning, and this week we started finding routine again purely through the grace of others.  Some co-op stuff has begun via video conferencing. Girl Scouts and ballet will do the same shortly. We are starting to see friends through video chat that we barely ever get to see. Video can't be the same as in person interaction, but, fucking hell, it's something, and I already feel it saving my and my child's sanity.  

In my quest for emotional balance I am now searching for a sense of, if not purpose, at least productivity. If my pottery studio had been brought into existence by now, I would likely be toasty warm with the sense of creation. As an alternative to the studio, I have started to write again, take ukele classes on YouTube with my kid, and sometimes I work on finding imagery to put on my hopefully future pottery.  My current favorites are images from airplane safety cards.  "Be sure to put on your own mask before helping others."