Beiing in quarantine has been an eye opener in a lot of ways. I make more money on unemployment than when I work. I’m a sore loser. I miss my cleaning lady. I am capable of change. Some things never change. Anyone who knows me even a little bit, knows that I love sitting on my ass, watching TV and eating an entire bag of M & M’s. So you would not be presumptuous if you assumed that after seven weeks of quarantine, I weigh 600 pounds and live in my bed. Astonishingly enough, I’ve lost 16 pounds, ride my stationary bike every night and have started working on my jewelry after a year of, well, not. Yea, me. But. Not seeing faces, gauging reactions, hearing inflections. This is especially hard for me. I am thin-skinned. Always have been. If I can’t see your face, I don’t know what you’re thinking. And if I don’t know what you’re thinking, I’m sure I’ve done something to piss you off. I got into a misunderstanding with someone I never fight with, because we were texting instead of talking face to face. I am envious of others. I feel left out. Not quite enough. Always have been. I listen to the amazing things all the moms are doing to make this crazy time ok for their kids. And a part of me feels left out. I am desperate to be the center of attention without anyone actually noticing what’s lacking, or crazy, or different. And yet. It also occurs to me that this tangle of nonsense is my drama. No one else’s. It has not gone unnoticed that I am looking for approval and validation from the great out there, and maybe I’m looking in the wrong place. Maybe, I need to stop trying to be the amazing women my friends are, and just be the amazing woman I already am. Maybe someday that sentence won’t make me roll my eyes and throw up in my mouth a little. If you untangle all the skinny crazy wires and twist them with other skinny little wires, before you know it, ya got a big piece of..well, ok, ya got a big piece of skinny little wires all twisted together. You get my point. All the tangled wires make us who we are. One at a time, they’re just a thing. But together? They are stronger, and more interesting because they’ve been twisted and torched and beaten with hammers. So. I’m going to focus on all the little skinny, crazy-ass wires that I’ve been blessed with and let everyone else twist their own wires anyway they want to. Fair warning, there may be fire and hammers.