I had a recurring nightmare in my youth where I was desperately trying to cross a busy street, but I kept falling down and could not make it. I never understood why I had it, and it lasted for years. Fortunately, it abated and long melted away into my long-term memory banks.
Another horror of youth just popped in too. Man I do overshare stupid stuff, I know… but when I was a kid the neighbor behind us had two big trees in his yard. I used to imagine there were devil-type figures living in them that would watch my every move. I remember being scared to even look out the windows at dusk because the “Warning Boys” (as my young terrified mind called them) would be there staring at me.
But it’s all good. I know they didn’t follow me to my current house. Of course, I won’t sleep or look out a window for a week now.
I’m a lucky man.
I cooked for spring training for 5 weeks then baseball ended. 60 plus ours each of those weeks, no days off. I didn’t get sick.
The high-end grocery store I worked for previously, got wind of it, and called and asked if I’d come back, and they would put me on full time with benefits (An upgrade from my previous status).
I told them I would like to enjoy a few days off first, and they obliged.
Then my phone rang and it was a couple I know who had a big order cutting textiles at a tiny, well ventilated, secluded and safe shop, and would I like to work this past week running their laser cutter. After 3 days off I said yes. Got in 4 solid days at a pretty nice pay rate.
Then went and worked at my grocery store, where I serve noodle salad and hot fresh food to people who have chosen to ignore the stay at home rule, for whom I am grateful in some odd way.
My work has been putting baked goods and chaffers full of food in the break room to boost morale, and just yesterday gave out 150 dollar gift cards to each employee to spend at their store.
Hard work got me here, and hard work will keep me here.
On top of all that I have a circle of friends who know me, love me, and accept me for exactly who I am, an imperfect, messy, and kind soul.
I don’t know how I could be any more rich.
Wonderful thread. Between the frequent tears of frustration and uncertainty I keep trying to remind myself that I’m so very fortunate, much more than many are. I have food, water, shelter, healthy family members, and amazing neighbors and friends who all are checking up on each other continuously and ready to help if need be. I have wine! My pets are fed and happy to spend more time with me! It’s not all doom and gloom, even though it’s easy to slip into that mindset if you don’t keep your head up. Thank you for spreading positivity @Josephine_van_Rijn!
It’s hard for me to see a silver lining because the stay at home orders have not really affected my life that much lol, the only things that are different to me is that I can’t take my daughter to the playground or arcade, which was a once a week or every other week thing, and the grocery store is out of certain items…I still went fishing yesterday, just me and my daughter, the state park I go fishing at had next to nobody there, which is normal, the fish were biting good, and my daughter really loves sitting in the boat and watching nature all around us…
We’re really lucky, my wife worked from home before the virus hit, I’m still in college and all my classes were online before the virus hit, we have a nice large property that we can wander around on, the only thing that has really been bad is we were supposed to be going to Puerto Rico on April 8th and obviously that’s not gonna happen now lol but once this is over we will be on a plane… my life is a silver lining right now, I feel really fortunate.
Oh geez, you brought back a couple of ongoing nightmares used to have. One was of falling, from what or where I don’t know. Just falling. I told someone about it once and they said “as long as you don’t hit bottom, you’re ok. If you hit bottom you’ll die.” That added a whole 'nuther level to the terror.
The other is harder to describe. The best way to explain it is: imagine a few handfuls of Pick-Up sticks scattered on the ground only instead of being stiff and stick-like, they’re soft and writhing. Always woke up sweating. To this day, large masses of moving things creep me out. Worms, snakes hives of bugs…makes me quesy.
Havent thought of that for decades. Thank you for that.
The same for me, we don’t have any stay at home orders but I sometimes wished we did.
Still a lot of people roaming about.
Apart from not doing lunchbreak at school 4x a week, my life is basically the same.
I pretty much keep to myself.
I just figured with all this panic and doom scenarios floating around, we could do with something positive and get some things in perspective
O geez, now I have made @anon70102222 barf again
The silver lining to your nightmares guys is that you wake up in your own bed, safe and warm.
I will not mention the drenched in cold sweat part, honest
I am grateful that we live in the middle of nowhere.
That I only work one or two days a week, which lowers the contact risk.
That hubby is not working at all due to foot surgery in Jan.
We only “have” to go out for shopping, which is already done.
We have not had to make too many adjustments to our lives for this situation.
I have just applied for a different job at my current workplace.
We have some $$ in the bank to get us through thanks to vaping!!
Our real estate agent has just msg’d this afternoon - an inspection on our (other) house tomorrow.
We can continue on pretty much as normal.
The internet is wonderful for keeping in touch.
We have plenty of books to read, movies to watch, things to do around the house, or take a walk and not have to worry about social distancing.
My thoughts are often with those who are having to adjust their lives dramatically in these times.
Between the frequent tears of frustration and uncertainty I keep trying to remind myself that I’m so very fortunate, much more than many are. I have food, water, shelter, healthy family members, and amazing neighbors and friends who all are checking up on each other continuously and ready to help if need be. I have wine! My pets are fed and happy to spend more time with me! It’s not all doom and gloom, even though it’s easy to slip into that mindset if you don’t keep your head up. Thank you for spreading positivity 
