Mixed Metaphors

“There’s a difference between solitude and loneliness.” — Maggie Smith

“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.” ― May Sarton 

This past week I hit the wall to use a metaphor. The difference between solitude and loneliness became viscerally clear. I consider myself someone who enjoys my own company and solitude, who goes to great lengths to protect it, and over the years has learned to be both independent and resilient, two skills critical to survive the pandemic.

For all practical purposes, I’ve been socially distancing since my former job ended on February 27^th. The first couple of weeks, I took action, applied for unemployment compensation, registered at the Department of Workforce Development, and began my job search. I submitted resumes to jobs online, both part-time and full-time, participated in a phone interview, followed by multiple in-person interviews, follow-up phone calls, and emails for two different positions.

In the end, I was offered a job doing work that I’m passionate about. I gratefully accepted it.  It’s part-time, which was my preference at this stage in my life. Because of COVID-19, and the stay-at-home guidelines in Wisconsin, my start date was first scheduled for mid-April, then extended to May 1^st. Because the date was postponed, so was the official public announcement and HR paperwork. Like many other areas of our lives during the pandemic, I’m in a temporary state of limbo.

The Ides of March was the last time I shared a brunch in a restaurant and hugs with friends. A couple of days later, I delivered birthday cards to my niece and nephew and we maintained a 6 ft. distance outdoors as I visited with my sister and her husband. That was my last in-person contact since I live alone.

Home Alone

Since I’m a glass half-full kind of gal, and a person in recovery from substances and behaviors, let me share my gratitude list before I whine about being alone beyond my comfort zone.  Gratitude and humor are two of my go-to survival skills from my toolbox. 16 days ago, I began posting a gratitude affirmation each day on Facebook in addition to a mostly humorous offering of Tools to Survive the Pandemic.  

Life During the Pandemic

30 Days of Gratitude, Or the Glass Is Half-Full

• Day 1: I’m grateful for my home
• Day 2: I’m grateful for friends & family (bio & chosen).
• Day 3: I’m grateful for my sobriety.
• Day 4: I’m grateful for my health, both mental and physical.
• Day 5: I’m grateful for healthcare providers, first responders, and essential workers.
• Day 6: I’m grateful for my memories.
• Day 7: I’m grateful for the arts, for music, the visual arts, the written word, theater, & film.
• Day 8: I’m grateful for laughter, especially when shared with others.
• Day 9: I’m grateful for nature, especially ‘walking meditations.’
• Day 10: I’m grateful for technology, social media, and the tools that help me connect to the outside world, while I socially distance.
• Day 11: I’m grateful my father turns 90-years-old today (April 1st, no foolin’)! He’s healthy & socially distancing.
• Day 12: I’m grateful that the ‘Promises’ of the 12-Step Program have come true for me (again).
• Day 13: I’m grateful for the food in my cupboards and the security and nourishment it provides.
• Day 14: I’m grateful for this new day.
• Day 15: I’m grateful that I’m resilient as I shelter-in-place at home.
• Day 16: I’m grateful for a friend who is making a face mask for me (and her other friends!).

14 more days of gratitude ahead…

Pandemic To-Do List

Early in my stay-at-home journey, I looked at this as an opportunity, a gift of time, to begin creative projects and cross off tasks on my to-do list for which I’ve been procrastinating. Here are my intentions:

A short summary:

• Finish my Final Draft screenwriting software tutorials.
• Research and outline my screenplay based on a true crime story, The Cold Blue Night.
• Draft the screenplay.
• Create Google Doc files for my episodic web series in production, Hotel Bar.
• Draft content and design web site for Hotel Bar.
• Deep clean the apartment.
• Organize my paper files, box up older files for storage, set aside files for shredding.
• Draft my will, and end-of-life instructions.
• Meet with my sister to share those documents.

Here’s the reality: Instead, I’d often go into the kitchen for a snack, watch the daily White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing, and post snarky comments on Facebook.  Oh, My! Just let me summarize by saying, I’m a work-in-progress and to borrow a slogan from AA, “Progress, not perfection.”

Alone & Lonely

One of the realities that’s been reinforced for me during this period of stay-at-home is that though I value my solitude, I need people and social connection. Prior to the outbreak, since I’ve lived alone these past 12 almost 13 years, I’ve learned to strike a balance between my solitary life and my social and community needs, which includes friends, family, creative colleagues, and people who share in my recovery, passions, and activism. I schedule time each week with friends and family and also practice spontaneity. Yes, like many things in my life I need to practice something until it’s habit. I’m an ambivert, so it’s important for me to both protect my solitude and seek out social connection to get recharged.

Early in my sobriety, I needed to identify emotions, to name them, to feel them, and to let them flow through me rather than stuff or deny them. Often those stuffed feelings were the reason I drank or engaged in behaviors that didn’t serve me. Now, 35 years later, after outpatient treatment, aftercare, peer support, and too many 12-Step Meetings to count, I now accept wholeheartedly, that when I feel lonely, it is simply a reminder that I need people. It’s not negative thing, a failing on my part, just an acknowledgement that I’m a social being.  Following is an excerpt from my memoir Perfectly Flawed.

Six years after I stopped drinking and when my first sober relationship ended, I was sitting again in the office of a new therapist. While I waited for her to get situated, pen in hand and notebook opened to a blank page, I imagined that she wrote the date and the words, “Client: Linda Lenzke, initial intake appointment,” I looked at the table in front of me and took an inventory of the objects: Kleenex, Koosh ball, magic wand with sparkly stars and floating glitter and plastic windup toy; I thought, these must be the tools of therapy. I smiled to myself. 

The therapist looked up after her fountain pen stopped gliding across the page and asked, “So, what brought you here today?” I immediately began crying, sobbing in fact, grateful for the Kleenex in front of me. The therapist did not change expression when she asked her follow-up question, “Do you know why you are crying?” I didn’t know the answer, only that I was where I needed to be, that I was at the beginning of a journey of discovery and restoration, that I was feeling something, emotions are energy in motion and the tears were evidence of the flow, the waves of feelings I would first experience in my body then learn to name with words.

It took me ten years of sitting in that chair, talking, crying, consuming Kleenex, picking up the magic wand, praying for insight and understanding, squeezing the Koosh ball, digging deep, winding up the toy and watching it walk, then tip over, winding it up again only to walk and fall over, repeating the cycle until I finally learned how to be sad, mad then glad.

I Will Survive (Hat Tip to Gloria Gaynor)

As I detailed earlier in my gratitude list, I’m grateful for the ways I’m able to connect with others virtually, using technology, including email, social media, and the phone. I miss physical affection, especially hugs, and the visual connection of looking into someone’s eyes, interpreting facial expressions, and reading body language. I’m grateful I have virtual access to 12-Step Recovery, and I can’t possibly begin to consume as much content and culture that is available to me. In the end, I’m not alone.

Yesterday, was a beautiful, warm, and sunny spring day. I sat on my balcony and took in the sights, sounds, and smells of the outdoor world in my neighborhood. I watched dog-walkers, lovers holding hands, people on bicycles, and cars driving down the busy street behind my apartment building, tires thumping, jumping railroad tracks. I listened to the songbirds and the murder of crows claiming territory on the roof of my home, the tips of the trees, and eating the remnants of carrion in the empty parking lot out back.

Life is good. Life goes on. I will survive.  It’s time to change my pajamas.

Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!

Dispatch from the Hideout: Pandemic Edition 

Dispatch from the Hideout: Social Distancing

Dispatch from the Hideout 

Another Dispatch from the Hideout 

Hibernation & the Holidays: Retreat to the Hideout

Dispatch from the Hideout: Premature Hibernation 

Hello, I’m Linda, Ambivert

To-Do List Confessions, Or How I’m a Little Bit OCD

Procrastination Station: Dysfunction Junction

The Power of Circles

The Orphan Holidays 

Additional Reading, Viewing & Listening on Being Home Alone

Stop Trying to Be Productive 

COVID-19: It’s Okay to Feel Overwhelmed and Be Unproductive

That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief

Quarantine Time

I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)