“I’m finding it hard to believe, laying here in your arms, baby all that I want… I’m in heaven…” (or something along those lines…, the tune is the song. My brain picks up lyrics and runs with them.)

Huh.

Internal iPod on shuffle again.

I look around. I’m in a hot bath, bubbles gradually popping all around me. Five candles around the edge of the tub to represent the five elemental directions. I’m in a safe space. After a hard couple of days, I’m taking a little time to myself. 3 books, a notebook and pen, a glass of water, a bowl of chips, and a cookie. No wine right now, not tonight.

So. Is this “heaven”? For this moment? Maybe?

I look around.

This bathtub, that I cannot stretch out in, filled with water, that just a few weeks ago held ice and snow melting so we could have some water to flush the toilets with during the freeze when we had no running water or stable electricity for days.

I hear the early spring winds howling outside, rattling the windows and dead tree branches that we have yet to be able to cut down.

I smell the chocolate in the chocolate chip cookie beside me, and the faint whiff of lemon in the bubble bath gel.

I taste the salt of the chips. Half missing the wine, half not. In the month since I was hit hard with covid, I’ve had two drinks, one beer and one cider. My body feels off-kilter most days right now, it doesn’t seem to care to deal with alcohol as well.

I hear the pipes in the house, the water softener kicking on in the garage. Fuck. We still need to get salt. Haven’t been able to find any for weeks. Damnit.

I see the fading bubbles in the water. I see the hodge lodge collection of bottles of bath potions along the side of the tub. I watch the flames of the candles dance. I stare up at the non-twinkly twinkly lights strung up overhead.

And I feel.

I feel it all.

I. feel. it. all.

The news. A woman goes missing. Women are told not to walk home alone. Why are the men or people not held accountable?

Climate fears. It’s already past the point of where we should have been when we talked about this stuff when I was in elementary school in the 80’s. It’s already shaping up to be a dry year in a drought region. A bath is a ridiculous luxury right now and I know it – but I need it. And once a month or so, I will justify it for my mental health.

Unemployed. The things I feel I can do, I apply for. But so far, no one deems me worthy or capable of employment in their ranks.

So much more. Always something racing through my mind.

My physical body – okay. My muscles are weaker, I’ve lost tone. Both from covid and covid. I went from moving furniture and shifting boxes and massaging bodies and on my feet for hours a day to… lockdown and unemployed and just doing things around the house everyday for the last year. For days on end. And now, after being so sick a month ago, I can’t seem to catch my breath. It’s a constant asthma attack. My chest feels tight and rocky and “growly” and it sucks.* It just sucks. I get winded carrying laundry across the house. I’m scared. I worry about scars and the changes to my heart and lungs. I need to make a doctor’s appointment to find out.

So. Is *this* heaven?

All the feels. Wind rattling windows. A now lukewarm bath. (yes, I am writing this in the bath. My handwriting is messy as I try to balance the notebook to not fall into the water and I will transfer notes to the computer later.) Emotions all roiled inside with my rattling breath.

And… a candle just went out.

Signs?

Possibly.

Answers?

Possibly. Possibly not.

I want better for the world. My world. The whole world. The only world we have to live on. I take the steps I can. I don’t know all of what I’ll be able to help or change or how I’ll help others. I can keep hoping.

But I’m not so sure yet this is heaven.

Comfort. Feeling safe. Trying to breathe again.

“I’m finding it hard to believe…”

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*Note: I do breathing exercises multiple times a day, several different ones. I work on my own chest, diaphragm, ribs, etc., to try to help alleviate the tightness. I picked up “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art” by James Nestor when it came out last year, thinking I would incorporate some of the techniques with some of my massage clients, and learned for myself. My O2 was consistently 100. Until covid. Now I’m averaging 96. Which is still decent, but not where my body was used to.