Sunday, April 19, 2020

Exhausted, Empty, Angry

Today I feel useless.  Exhausted, empty, angry, and dull.  I don't like what I'm writing.  I can't summon the will to sanitize doorknobs and light-switches (preferring a potentially fatal disease to housework, apparently). I'm furious at Max for playing computer games all day in his darkened bedroom, and hurt by his refusal to join my husband and me on a bike ride or hike. 

My husband says he'll talk to Max about whether the expensive culinary school Max has his heart set on is realistic. Whether any college will be open for face-to-face classes next fall.  But he doesn't.  He'll also agree to pick up after himself and sanitize surfaces--and won't.  It all falls to me. I let it, because after all, my husband is "working," and I'm not. 

Or am I?  My writing is work.  Parenting is a hell of a lot of emotional work.  And surviving a pandemic is pretty damn labor intensive too.

I need help from my beloveds. But maybe they feel as empty as I do, just as stunned--all our power to act thwarted.

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