The New Normal: Same, Same…But Different (and the Dangers of a Drunk Phone Call)
Well it’s week seven of my hermit life, and every day/week is starting to feel the same. New patterns are starting to develop and the thought of a time before seems either like a distant memory or a dream. They always say it takes about 21 days to cement a new habit, but what about an entirely new life? It seems to have a similar trajectory as I find my new routines familiar, despite everything still feeling a bit off (which is also starting to become a bit of a consistent feeling). It’s like we’ve all entered into autopilot in this collective grief period, and I can tell it’s going to take some time to re-adjust to life as we knew it.
Last week the government in my province started talking about opening things up, and it sent my anxiety skyrocketing to the point where I felt I might have developed some agoraphobic inclinations. My mind went immediately to a familiar pattern of panic. You see, over the last few weeks I’ve been giving myself a bit of a break from thinking bout all of the really hard stuff. I’d relaxed on my goal of deciding whether or not to be a single mom by July because it felt unfair to myself to continue with this arbitrary timeline (like I need the pressure of any additional timelines beyond what biology has gifted us ladies with). I was meditating, and trying to just settle in and enjoy time spent with my “quarantine boyfriend” without thinking of all the faults, the what-ifs, the future. Self-compassion was the name of the game and getting out of all of this in one piece.
But that self-imposed Zen break came to a crashing halt the minute they talked about the opening the province up. Immediately my mind went back to all of the things I would have been spending my time figuring out over the last month and a half. Because the fact is, that while the world has felt like it’s paused a bit, we’re going to emerge at the end of this (if there is an end in sight) and time will have passed. For lots of people, they can make it up. The time, the money eventually, the defined waistline. But for someone running up against a biological clock, that time is gone, forever. The government in my province will still only pay for IVF up to a certain point, and I will have to make a decision with even less time remaining (and less time to actively put plans in place).
These panicked thoughts all came to a head one drunken night last week. It’s probably not the best time to be drinking, but it also feels like the only way to get through a Zoom call sometimes. I had just gotten off a call with three friends, who are about my age, and the conversation had turned to talk of fertility, as it usually does. One of my friends is fully pregnant, another has been trying unsuccessfully for years, and the other is married to someone who wants kids, but they haven’t done anything about it. So it’s a huge elephant in their condo. And I spent the call wishing that I was at least on one of those tracks (there goes that pesky comparison). My breath became shallow, nausea crept up and my head started to throb from lack of oxygen. Standard anxiety. I could feel the panic of not moving forward on anything. I mean I just want to make a decision and be done with it. But even if I did right now, fertility clinics are closed and it’s dangerous to date a bunch of people to find the right one, so once again stuck.
My thoughts crashed in on me and turned to my current quarantine boyfriend. And I started to overanalyze, psychoanalyze, think of everything that’s wrong or could go wrong with him or us, obsess over all of the what-ifs, catastrophize. And I of course (being a little drunk) thought that it would be a good time to call him.
Does anyone ever recover from a serious case of drunk texts or calls? Let me remind you that I’ve been dating this guy for a very short period of time, and I called him questioning his finances, and when he’d be ready to have a kid, and putting the weight of all of my drunken thoughts on his decidedly sober state.
And I must say that he took it like a champ. He was really quite calm about it all and that infuriated me to the point where I had to end the call…by hanging up. Not very mature behaviour but nonetheless. Being the nice guy that he is, he did all the right things. Asked if I was okay the next day, offered to come over, but still couldn’t offer me the answers to my (totally ridiculous) questions. We had a big talk about it and I had understandably shaken him up. Honestly, if he were a lesser guy or even just less invested in us, he would have probably ghosted. But we ended up having a good heart to heart and seem to be on somewhat stable ground again.
But my panic is still there. And I’m constantly having to remind myself to just take things moment by moment. To breathe and calm my nervous system, and start thinking of those alternate thoughts such as “it doesn’t have to be one or the other” (the dating this guy or having a kid). There are still lots of options that my logical brain can consider when I get out of panic or drunken thinking.
Until then I need to remind myself constantly that I am not alone. That we are all in this together.
And we will all get through it…together.
Originally published at http://datingonadeadline.wordpress.com on May 7, 2020.
