Health in Crisis

It’s a little past week 3 of confinement, here in Montreal. Time has ground to a halt. Everyone tries to create or maintain a bit of a daily routine to avoid going nuts. My family is doing great and I’m super proud that everyone is making noticeable efforts to maintain the peace and coexist in harmony.

Still, we’re in the middle of a real, textbook crisis.

Around us, the news is bleak. Tens of thousands of Humans have died around the world, and with Africa now showing signs of an early flare, things are only going to get much, much worse. We wake up every day wondering about our elders and close ones, our faraway friends, our family, fearing that we could get terrible news at any point, coming from anyone. We live a slow, low-level, hard-to-pinpoint but constant stress situation that took a long time for me to sink in. 

A ton of things we took for granted now feel like distant memories. I found myself longing, at the brink of tears, for an outing at the fresh food market with my girlfriend, a foodie’s ritual we’d developed together on weekends or nights when the kids aren’t around. We just go there and wander around the local shops, picking out cheeses, wines, awesome vegetables or fresh pasta. We smile at the people and thank them for their beautiful products. Then we hurry back home to invent some crazy good recipe and we just, simply, enjoy life. This, to me, is a true piece of happiness. 

I also felt lost, not two days ago, when I realized there was a hole in my soul where the Forest used to be. Tearing me away from Nature is probably, all things obviously considered, one of the worst tortures you can put me under. The trails and mountains have been my cure, my refuge and my sanctuary for enough years now that they are fully integrated into who I am. And now I find that the former simplest of things, going for a trail run, is an unaffordable luxury and an unacceptable risk to my fellow people. Again, slow devastation.

So globally, this is a crisis of health. But for little me, who’s lucky enough to be away enough and prepared enough and safe enough that COVID is mostly a daily background flow of bad news, this is turning into another kind of health crisis. A mental one. 

I think I can say I’m a fairly stable dude. I’m nothing out of the ordinary, just a normal guy with a good life, grateful, happy and surrounded with love. I live by a few basic principles. We are all One. Be nice (or go home). Run Free. Go with the flow. 

I deal with what life brings.

These past couple weeks, though, life has brought something that’s new to me. Something I don’t quite have the tools to deal with, right off the bat. Something that affects my core values and principles. Something I have to learn to live with. A shadow in my mind.

Life has brought anxiety. 

I’m a bit of an old-school guy. I have these ideas about protecting the ones I love, about showing a good example and about being there when others need help. It’s just who I am. I feel the best about myself when I can do these 3 things. They’re a compass of sorts, which guides my opinions, my decisions and my actions. 

In the midst of the COVID crisis, all 3 are out the window. I can’t protect anyone, aside from staying recluse and hoping for the best. The only example I can set is staying recluse and hoping for the best. And I can’t run out and go help others who need it, because the only competence I seem to have right now is my ability to stay recluse and hope for the best.

Slowly, as the days crawled by, an annoying little sentiment has crept into my spirit. It’s a slow realization that I am of no use, right now. I am an immunity sitting duck, nervously swimming around with my little homebound flock, trying to look like I know what I’m doing while I’m hoping for the best. I feel terrible.

None of my qualities, qualifications or capabilities matter right now. My best shot at saving people is staying on my worried ass, writing about my own little anxiety. And that last phrase best sums what further worsens my state of mind; I feel ridiculous.

So I strip of any pride or façade, and I show it like it is. I’m anxious. Nervous. Irritable. Antsy. Worried. I don’t sleep that well. And I’m a little angry at myself. I wish I could do something awesome and save some people from getting sick, or help out in a super-significant way. Mean something when things are dire. But I can’t. Not at this scale, not now.

So... I try to act at another scale. I fix little things around the house. I cook. I tidy up the yard. I try to do my part with the dishes and the other home things. When I feel I’m about to get into other people’s hair, I go away, put some music in the headphones and be quiet for a while. I tell my people I love them and never hold back a hug. I ask how they are, and listen to their answer. I take long, solitary walks with the woman I love. We share how we feel, good or bad. We talk. And things are always better.

I’m slowly discovering that I can keep my anxiety at bay by shedding light on it. I don’t keep it to myself. I don’t act like it’s not there and that everything is all right. I simply talk about it and let others know how I feel.

I’m letting you, my friend, know how I feel. 

And suddenly, things are a little better.