Life On The Inside

I have to admit it, I love being on the inside.

After "surviving" (I use that word loosely, because you don't completely survive COVID-19), I started to write, giving birth to The Corona Chronicles, my daily thoughts and musings.  I find writing therapeutic. It's my personal journey through COVID-19.  It gives insight into the suffering, but also the goodness of people.  I pull on your emotions, I make you laugh and make you cry, sometimes both at the same time.  Heather's Dawning, my blog, is made up of my first (Heather) and pet (Dawn) names. It's my awakening.  Covid-19 may have knocked me down, but it also awakened my creativity.  It also has kept me busy.

Zoom has become my new best friend.  The truth is I don't see family or friends, not even co-workers, that often or even close to it.  I am on Zoom every single day.  Family Zoom, Tae Chi/Yoga Zoom, Girls Zoom, Staff Meeting Zoom.  I partied on Zoom, have weekly cocktails, watched a performance, and even got counseling.  

My creative juices got stirred up differently when at  one of our Family Zoom, we did Paint and Sip (lots of sip happening during this lockdown), led by nephew Kyle.  I made sure I had my supplies, having ordered from Michael's. When I saw that black paint wasn't included in the package, I stood on line at Target for 15 minutes and to my annoyance, there was no black paint.  Nephew Kyle came to my rescue. And I created the masterpiece above.  I know you can't tell the difference between the original and mine!!  And I fool myself into thinking so, so much so, that I have ordered additional paint and canvas and have gone on websites to find pictures to do my own paint.  I think I will hold off on the sip.  

Tae Chi Zoom is another story, I don't know why I even bother.  I am trying to learn some finesse, to be soft, to be fluid in my motion, and to be graceful.  You can see how off my paint lines are in the painting above.  I can't paint my nails or draw a straight line because I am a klutz.  My pinkie sticks out when I drink tea; there has to be something there, but sadly no.  For the stretching portion I hold my own for a little while, but God help me when they say go on the floor.  As soon as it's "legs up," I am done.  There is one called Vibrations.  I do really really well with that one.  It's moving your body.  If you were at my Zoom birthday party or seen the Zoom video, you know I can move my body.  And love it.

        

When I am not Zooming, or even when I am Zooming, I am cooking, almost every.single.day, sometimes twice per day.  I have not eaten out since March 16th.  This is the person who purchase lunch, is always at some event eating their food or picking up on my way home.  I went from someone who loved to cook in my earlier years to someone who only cooked for special events.  Now, here I am back to cooking and loving it.  And loving my own food.  Sometimes, I videotape myself cooking. I am thinking of creating my own cooking show.

How will I return to work?  What will that look like?  How will I cope?  I am afraid of going back to bad habits.  Will I be so anti-social, that I will have to learn to be around people again?  What will happen to my relationship with Zoom?