Hey, that’s me; sitting in the corner over here.
I’m not going to lie, this is not a ‘fun’ post; this has been hard. I know all the tricks to keep your head above water when depression sets in but I’ve been treading water for 10 months now and I’m getting weak. So I’m sitting in the corner here, working on a jigsaw puzzle.
To make matter worse, I had a bad fall, I don’t feel like writing about it but I bruised my ribs and that hurts like hell. I did it a couple of days before Christmas. That probably marked the beginning of my retreat into the corner.
I did get chance to zoom with my sister’s family on Christmas Day which was nice but that was over by noon.
I have been organizing zoom meetings in an attempt to communicate with people. We had a get-together with old friends on the 21st. That went well. I did it with another friend; we put 2 meetings together and had an hour and half. For all the people we reached out to, only 2 people other than the regulars showed up.
The Zoom Balderdash game has been going well, too. Its a nice break mid week. I decided to do a special edition NYE game which meant doing it two days in a row. That was fine; I have nothing better to do anyway.
On Wednesday, one of the players, who is consistently unreliable, sent me her definitions very late. I didn’t want to be the ‘bad guy’ and say ‘you’re too late’ but it messed me up. I wasn’t ready for the game; people were coming into the room while I was still getting it together. I hadn’t peed and my fire went out. It was such a buzzkill on the game. Jeez Louse I sent out the game on Monday morning and Wed. night I’m waiting for the answers. What made it worse is seeing the next day she was on Facebook after I had texted her to remind her and she said they were coming.
The next night we had some different people; a friend I don’t know very well from our Sunday social zoom wanted to play Balderdash a few weeks ago. I thought there were too many players already but I asked him in as a guest, hoping he would set up a game. He has the game and paid-for Zoom.
So he played one week with us and was OK. I did not invite him the next week because there are already 9 players which is, frankly, too many already. But some people said ” Were’s ____? He should play!”
And so I went against my gut feelings to not add him to our game. I should always, always trust my gut feelings. He wrote something offensive. Now, I’m not a prude but this wasn’t even funny and it being “for teens” crossed the line. Not only that, I know these people; they are very conservative and don’t swear or make off-colour jokes. I could not imagine reading that out to them so I wrote to him and asked to tone it down; could I take off “for teens” and use a word other than “rich fucks”. He said OK.
When we got on Zoom for the game he was mad about being “censored”. He called other players ‘stupid’. Luckily they were not on yet but when they did get in I could feel how pissed off he was. The very people who wanted him back in the game. Do not let people talk you into something you KNOW is wrong.
So I had put a lot of work into reaching out to people and organizing some kind of fun. The nicer people have thanked me and my friend for all our work getting them together. And that’s reward enough. My friend also lives alone and doesn’t have children so she understands what its like being alone.
This has been hard on everybody. I’m sure those living with others are longing for some time alone. Our lives and our whole society, all over the world, has been shaken up by this pandemic. Many people are stressed out and behaving badly, including me. I’m not having ‘good thoughts’ right now, no matter how hard I try.
So . . .I’ll just sit in a corner where no one notices me and work on my puzzle.
Your prompt for #JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “in the corner.” Write about whatever the image or thought of “in the corner” brings to mind.
The Friday Reminder for #SoCS & #JusJoJan 2021 Daily Prompt – Jan. 2nd | (lindaghill.com)
monicle's chronicles 