The brittle bicycle

I was lying in bed unable to fall asleep, thinking about the hard week I had just finished. After a not so restful weekend, I was not looking forward to starting a new week. While looking forward to getting my second vaccine and it feels like the world is opening up, life does not feel normal yet.  I feel overwhelmed by the world a head of me.  Even with the vaccine I'm nor sure what we will be conformable doing.  How should we act while we wait for our six year old to get a vaccine?

Worst of all is I don't feel like myself.  It is hard to put into words how I feel.  Is I trying to fall asleep I felt brittle, like minor forces were breaking me apart.  It is like my skin is a plastic shell that has been left out in nature too long, exposed to rain, wind, and sun to the point of decay.  Incidents I could shake off or recover from quickly currently derail me.  There are tasks that I used to do quickly that seen to take me all day now.  Instead of being able to refresh myself and feel good, I just hope to get back to baseline.  

As I lay away, another metaphor came to mind.  I feel like a poorly maintained bicycle in need of a tuneup.  My breaks have a lot of give, my shifter is misaligned, my chain needs to be oil, there are some bald patches on my tired, and all my cables seem loose.  I am still ride able, I am still safe, I can get where I need to go, but it can be a rough ride at times.  There are times where I seem to go straight from second to fourth gear, I need to ease into braking, and if I don't down shift before coming to a stop I cannot get into a low gear again.  Some times I just don't respond in the way I expect. 

There is part of me that feels like I'm whining when I write this.  By all accounts, I've been lucky during this pandemic.  I know people who have had it much worse.  Three are a number of things that have suffered, like my parenting, my relationships, and my work life.  I feel like I am not emotional available as a husband as I should be.  The longer this goes on, the worst it feels.  There are time I just don't want to engage with anything.  After getting my second dose of the vaccine, the next hurdle is getting through the end of the school year of Zoom Kindergarten.    

I think it important for people to realize these moments.  I think this is important when it comes to self care and how we treat each other.  Not everyone will be ready to get back to normal life at the same rate.  I will not be able to just get a tuneup and having everything running at peak performance after a trip to the bike shop.  It will take a while before I feel like I'm at top condition.  

Lets all be nice to each other as we get ourselves back into riding shape.