These are very strange times we’re living in. The Covid-19 virus is burning through the globe, prompting governments to declare that their citizens must self-quarantine, shelter in place, or otherwise restrict their movements to prevent the spread of the contagion.
I have been working from home for over a year now. Open plan offices are not conducive for me to concentrate and being an introvert, I’ve discovered that I am much more balanced at the end of the day when I’m not confronted for 8+ hours with extroversion on a massive scale. So I am already comfortable being alone during the workday.
Since the beginning of March, I really started self-quarantining. My soon-to-be-ex-husband scoffed at the concern others had about Covid-19, likening it to the flu and claiming that he wouldn’t suffer any ill effects anyway because he’s been running, he’s in shape, he has great lungs. At that point, I knew it was not worth the battle to try to disabuse him and tell him that those factors may not protect him. That no one really knows how their bodies will react to this virus because it’s so new (hence why people refer to it as the novel coronavirus).
But as someone who has had wicked bouts with pneumonia before, I wanted nothing to do with this virus. I had already been stressed due to my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s relapse into his addiction. I know that under extreme stress like that my body does not react well. I’m firmly convinced that the stress of those last months in San Antonio years ago contributed greatly in my pink melanoma making an appearance. So I want to stay as far away from this virus when I’m under some significant stress ending my marriage. The last thing I need is to come down with this now. As awful as it is that my estranged husband moved out, I’m kinda glad that he did when he did. His addiction puts him into regular contact with people he doesn’t even know. I really don’t need him bringing an infection of Covid-19 to my doorstep.
In order to combat this self-isolation that I’m currently in, I’ve been texting my awesome support team a lot since I made the decision to leave my marriage. Heck, I even spent quite a bit of time on the phone with a few people this past week. (If you knew me, you would know how earth-shattering that is.) But I’m lucky that throughout much of my relationship with my spouse I really was on my own from an emotional standpoint anyway. Being alone right now and being under a shelter-in-place order hasn’t really affected me much. I’m fairly busy at work and in the evenings, I’m either reading or doing research for what I want the next phase of my life to look like. Not having the stress of watching my husband unravel the years of sobriety and the decades of our relationship has actually helped me focus more on me and my needs. While the pandemic and its drastic stoppage of normal life coupled with trying to get the divorce finalized and get the condo sold has been stressful on a macro level for me, on a day-to-day level it’s pretty much same old same old…
Except one thing… I’m starting to own my truth about what my relationship was really like. As I noted in my last post, I kept so many secrets about my husband, his addiction, and our relationship. And in this heightened emotional state that I’m in, I’m finding that a torrent has been unleashed. In laying my soul bare to my best friends, I’m finding that once the catharsis begins, it’s hard to stop until every last drop of darkness had been dragged into the light. It’s horrifying in a way, like having someone watch you vomit. But it also generates an incredible sense of relief – to purge myself of this poison that I had been holding in for so, so long.
And weirdly, I feel like self-quarantining has really been an environment that allows for this catharsis. I’m not face-to-face with anyone and see the shock, the sadness, maybe even the judgment that crosses someone’s face when I unload. For someone who doesn’t do the outpouring of emotions like this, being forced to keep my distance physically from others has somehow made me feel ok with divulging things that I had repressed for years.