I haven’t seen Don in 88 days as of today. I have been mostly alone since my birthday, which was the day he flew away to his new job. Today he is coming home and part of me was like, hmm….should I write all of my goodbyes now…should I pre-write them for a possible later date? Then the other part of my head is like nahhh…if you write them it might turn the tide more towards Covid coming into your house. If you simply believe it is all okay, it will be all okay. It will have to be okay. Now we aren’t living in some super dense city, but unlike a good part of America, I don’t believe the virus discriminates on party lines or rural vs city–whomever has it doesn’t do a pre-registration of being a city person only allowed in city places or a rural person never going to any city.

I did consider the full 14 day quarantine for him but he has promised me he has worn his mask just as vigilantly as I have, but there is also the fact that I am deathly afraid of the virus so I would never ever take any shortcuts. I assume he has done the same and realized how sensitive my system is to a diseases that wrecks the blood vessel walls since I already have one that wrecks blood vessel walls. There is also the consideration of the fact he and I have no real roots in this state to go somewhere else besides a hotel for 14 days. And since he is coming from a hotel, not sure if sticking him in another one in a more populous state is the best idea especially with a higher infection rate, well, rate that we know of anyways. If he comes here I did all the things to keep us safe–water filters. etc. I even got MERV-13 filters for our AC/furnace because trusting my management company is probably nothing I would ever do, let alone should ever do.

I am kind of putting the positive ideas to manifest in these words–I am definitely somewhat superstitious so I didn’t write anything about him coming home or things working out sometimes because I fear the jinxing of the good. But he will come here today and I am sure our quarantine will last maybe 10 seconds. I do have the things to keep track of us–pulseox, thermometer, BP cuff–I might do an initial reading of him and will definitely be doing a chart of us through the 1st of June and really longer because that is the kind of practice that will allow you to know and see any changes in health. Now, we both did have enough nicotine happening that we would probably not easily catch it according to their research, but you know–if something weird was coming I always expect myself to maybe be prone, coronaprone, as I say. But I will not catch it right now, and neither will he.

Clearly I don’t want to be one of those, her husband came home stories. Simply writing them seems to make them more probable, or maybe less so. All I know is I have been 95% alone for 7 months and I miss him and I don’t think I would survive well without him anyways. So I will do the temp, pulseOx, BP and garlic test. I will check his eyes, his toes–and those are the real defining marks of infection–rash, lack of smell, diminishing oxygen. I have seen his face every day on the other side of my screen–never heard any coughing, sneezing, he seems well enough to move all his crap out of a 400 sq foot apartment–and if I was wrong, well, I was wrong. I wouldn’t survive long without him anyways so it might be better for us both to be in the same space over different places because nobody else is going to take care of me. I am definitely not going to be able to work for however long if ever and–it’s just common sense.

So tonight will be a relief, yet will leave me slightly anxious because that is in my core, but I hope in a few weeks things will be even enough here that we can decide where we want to go next and if we want to go somewhere next. And the anxiety I have had waking me up at 3:30 am will hopefully cease and allow some better shit to permeate my brain and soul. I’ve got half a day’s work still on the dog photos, and the websites are obviously in serious need of work and building but I haven’t had the space in my brain for that since I have had to worry about Don–if he isn’t safe then I am not safe and life really isn’t worth living then. I have no children, my family is far and we aren’t close and really nobody but Don and Duke count on me for anything so my living and reason for living is pretty tightly tied into their well-being. I have a few friends that text me a week–maybe 2, I talk to my mother in Tennessee monthly and that’s it for my connections to the world. Hell even here the sheer amounts of time I have mentioned I am utterly alone—maybe like 2, 3 comments in 20 years about that. 20 years is a long time to have a blog nobody comments on, but would explain how a person could have a blog for this long and barely anyone knows about it, so therein is the joke.

I am still going to ask for your wellness prayers for both of us since I legitimately have nobody to do that. And sometimes you need to ask the universe for more favor, and people are in that universe, so here we are. Send us some good stuff–I am not ready to die right now and I can’t live without Don so we both need some good ju-ju to get us through. Love to you all. xoxo