Sheltering In
Are you on the edge of real stir-craziness?
Or do you secretly ADORE having an excuse to stay home and not get dressed if you don’t feel like it? I wore a bra for the first time in weeks the other day and my boobies screamed, WTF?!?
Are you like me and acclimating to this strange and estranged life like Cinderella’s foot into the Prince’s glass slipper? Is your life of social distancing actually working for you?
(It’s ok, I won’t tell anyone.)
Because I have lived the life of a reclusive artist for a few years now, I am strangely comfortable in Covid-land. Living off the grid in always stunning Baja, I couldn’t be in a better place. You would never guess I am only 45 minutes south of San Diego.
The village of San Miguel is tiny and without good roads or a fire department. No big box stores within miles. Internet that is as slow as dial-up, even though they call it high speed. LOL. Especially now with #TheInvisibleMoneyGame in full gear. I have all the social encountering I want and I get to live off the grid. I love living off the grid in rural Mexico.
Except for the occasional rattle snake.
That’s right, rattle snake. My neighbor and land lady has killed many over time. That so cracks me up because she is the most elegant woman ever. But. When an aggressive rattler is around, she turns into Wonder Woman on steroids.
She offered me the rattle and I said YES! It is really cool. Eight and a half little rattles, it was almost 9 years old. I envy the local people and what they know about the land, plants and animals. I am super grateful because they openly teach whatever they know.
Roaming the many acres that is called The Ejido, is very much like being at Summer Camp on a permanent basis. You get to smell and touch the plants and watch lots of animals. There are often times with no people anywhere around.
Living in the Country
Imagine living at camp. When I was a kid I escaped my family of 10 for two weeks at Camp Tanadoona in Lower Michigan. When I say escape, I mean it. It was a battle ground at home between a couple of drama queens, my parents.
If either one of them was happy in their lives, I don’t remember seeing signs of it. They seemed to despise one another. But I was just a kid, so what do I know.
Now, when the world is panicking and people are dying right and left. I am escaping again, right into the arms of a place of easy peace and not a single family member around.
Did I mean for my life to work best when my blood family is distanced and detached? Not really. It more or less evolved. Estrangement is as natural as breathing. My own parents lost their parents at very young ages. Maybe that is part of it.
My dad lost his mom at age 11. My mom lost hers at age 31. Does that excuse the cruelty of their neglect? Hardly. But their history is knit to mine no matter how separate I live physically.
Both my parents took off and lived their own lives without building relationship with me. I can’t speak for the rest of my seven siblings. Dad remarried, and the fact that it was his long term secretary added a lot of juicy drama. Mom left the country on a series of what I call social missionary crusades.
Spreading her brand of life philosophy among the natives of Israel, Palestine, China and Haiti among others, she found the acceptance she craved while living a fulfilling yet estranged life. What hurt me the most was the lie she told while being a world hero.
She loved telling people how she had close intimate relationships with her children at the same time she was completely estranged from me personally. It burned in my chest like a hot coal hearing people rave about her and how lucky I was when they believed her lie.
The truth is she loved her estranged lifestyle, or that is how it looked. I can’t speak for the rest of her eight children. I can only speak for me. It is odd beyond my understanding that I have had a life time of training for covid living.
You see, it takes one to know one. It takes one to breed one. I am estranged and fucking thriving. I get her. I get me. Estrangement is not easy. In fact there are times it strangles with emotional pain.
Living in the same city with a close relative who leaves you sitting alone on Christmas is brutal. Finding a few other estrangement orphans to have Chinese carry out and Netflix with is a life saver.
Going through cancer in estrangement is as challenging as it gets. Leaning on the people who seem to “randomly” show up at the right time in the right place becomes the cure.
Now that everyone is estranged from everything, I almost feel guilty for being so at ease. I said, almost. You see, I know that I have sisters and brothers out there. I know there are people just like me who have decided to embrace estrangement and make it work.
Not only make it work but thrive, truly thrive. I have experienced every emotion possible over a lifetime of relatively short term relationships. Long term connections in a highly estranged family are delicate.
Some of the threads are so thin, long term detachment is just par for the course. Some people actually function better when they are estranged from you and while that may be painful, when accepted something amazing happens.
There are so many people with estrangement issues out there.
Once you let go and really choose to let them be fully estranged, like magic, you will meet someone new as a friend, colleague or even another family member might reach out.
Estrangement isn’t fatal.
In fact, played right, it’s kind of delightful. Here is a game plan: Take the current conditions and play the “Even Though Game.” Breathe into each thought and allow them to sink in. Here are my top Painful Family Story Reframes for getting through tough times when being apart from your family stings like stepping on a nail.
I call it The Even Though Game
Even though I am estranged from my family, I get total control of the remote and whether the pets sleep on the bed or not.
Even though I get lonely, the truth is that loneliness passes and there are parts of being alone I really do enjoy.
Even though my family has never been there for me and of course they are not there for me again, I can choose to look at the last three new people who showed up in my life and be glad about that.
Even though my mom is getting on my last nerve, I can let myself let her go to voicemail sometimes whether she likes it or not.
Even though I am afraid and don’t have anyone I can call if I need help, the truth is I can make a plan and start tomorrow to fix that.
Even though the news is horrifying and I binge on it way too much, I can get an accountability buddy and turn the damn TV off.
Even though I hate wearing a mask and can’t imagine ever being in a crowded subway again, today I can go to youtube and force myself to watch cute animal videos or star trek reruns.
Even though it feels awkward to do Zoom calls, I can adopt myself the best I can and ask for help if I need it.
Even though I can’t be with my grandkids, there are young families in my city who could use a surrogate grandma or grandpa.
Even though my daughter won’t talk to me, I do have several women friends who like me and think I know a thing or two.
It isn’t easy to keep a positive mindset in the middle of a pandemic and if you are estranged from your family it can be worse. Here is a cool resource I found on line. It is called Stand Alone, https://www.standalone.org.uk/, and they are here to support and raise awareness about adults that are estranged from their family or children.
PS. If you are looking for a positive distraction, there is some real magic happening at The Invisible Money Game