Smoke Break

Carrie Underwood had a hit song a few years back entitled “Smoke Break,” and the chorus just resonates with me right now as Carrie tells of a woman who has about had it up to HERE with the pressures of life.

“She said, I don’t drink but sometimes I need a stiff drink / Sipping from a high, full glass let the world fade away / She said, I don’t smoke but sometimes I need a long drag / Yeah, I know it might sound bad but sometimes I need a smoke break.”

Another song lyric that just about sums it up for me-  “It’s hard to be a good wife and a good mom and a good Christian.” A to the MEN, Carrie. Sing it, girl. Or scream it. Whatever. Her voice gets on my nerves but I can overlook it in that particular song.

I did a little status rant on Facebook earlier today informing my friends that I would be deactivating my account for a few months and tried to give them a brief summary as to the why, but of course I had a ton more to say and that platform isn’t conducive to my verbal diarrhea. So here I am sitting in my typical middle of the night / early morning blog session at the kitchen table because I am unable to sleep. There are many possible reasons for this, the main one being that I am 6 months pregnant and am constantly peeing and feeling the baby kick which prevents me from getting good shut-eye. Then there are the nightmares that I have been having for the past week that make it hard for me to even WANT to go to sleep. I’m not one who normally wakes up and recalls her dreams, but there’s no forgetting what my eyes have seen behind closed lids as my brain struggles with images that are partly real but mostly disjointed and horrifying scenarios of things that are my worst fears. No coincidence that the 3-year mark of Carter’s passing is closely upon us. I’m sure my subconscious is struggling and since I can’t find respite in slumber, here I am. Just me, myself, and I typing to try and find some sort of outlet to get what is inside of my head onto a screen in an effort to find some small semblance of peace.

This COVID-19 mess has turned what was otherwise a crazy yet semi-tolerable world to exist in into something nearly unrecognizable and ugly. Suicide rates are spiking and it’s no wonder. People are losing their ever-loving minds. Ignorance and sheer stupidity are abundant, nobody takes the time to fact check anything, articles and videos are shared that are so old and outdated as to be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that people actually believe them to be current, and people are of the mindset that if it is on the Internet, then it must be true. “Consider the source” is not a term that applies when it comes to medical “experts”. Nowadays, people can talk to you for an hour about a virus and its various means of transmission, the benefits of wearing/not wearing a mask, herd immunity, etc. but there’s a strong likelihood that those same people never went to medical school and probably slept through most of biology and chemistry.

As I stated in my FB rant, everyone is different and nobody has the same set of circumstances. Not everyone who wears a mask is “living in fear” and not everyone who refuses to do so is being selfish and a menace to society. For instance, I have rheumatoid arthritis and take injections monthly to suppress my immune system since it attacks my joints. After administering two injections a few weeks ago, I decided to wear a mask at work because I handle money at the register and interact with the public. My immune system is compromised, and I’m pregnant, so I wanted to take extra precautions for those 6 hours of my shift after receiving the shots. After less than 2 hours I was seeing spots and feeling light-headed, so the mask came off. I’m over 200 pounds and it’s summer in the south. The way I saw it, there were two choices- I could continue wearing the mask and pass out on the floor or take it off and remain behind my little Plexi-glass screen and try to practice social distancing while handling transactions. Still, there were customers coming in griping about how not every employee was wearing a mask and that they wouldn’t be back. What I wanted to say was to get the friggin’ food to-go if you’re that worried about it! I’m not handling your food- I’m taking your money, which is one of the more disgusting things to touch outside of human excrement. What kills me is that these people will squirt two dollops of hand sanitizer before handing me their money, which is negated once I then place the change in their hands and they proceed to the exit door and touch the handle. Or, they just touched a shared pen to sign a credit card receipt and then touched the card that I just swiped with my glove-less hands. I can’t change gloves in between each transaction, so germs are definitely being spread, but by their logic if I just wore a mask it would be OK and they would be safe from the ‘Rona. Sure.

A friend of mine has the virus and went on her Instagram stories to share her experience with it. She’s been such a trooper and outside of a couple of days with bad headaches, shortness of breath, and fatigue, she’s just been mosey-ing along being her chipper self. She’s making jokes, having fun at home while being quarantined, and trying to shed positivity since the media would have us believe we’re all going to die once we get it. One of her followers had the nerve to message her and reprimand her for daring to make light of a serious situation when in fact, she wasn’t making light of it…she was just offering a different perspective as she shared her experience. The problem was that her perspective didn’t fit the narrative of this other person, so my friend was shamed for being her true and authentic self. How infuriating!

So, a lot of my frustration here lately is due to this virus and how people are reacting to it. I know that it’s real. I have family members with it, I have attended virtual funerals of dear friends who have passed from it, and I am fearful of getting it and causing complications with this pregnancy and/or passing it along to my two girls. Of course I want to do my part to stop the spread, but for me, that means keeping my butt at home. I literally don’t go anywhere except to work 3 nights a week and when I’m there I use common sense which seems to be lacking in a lot of others.

This virus has taken a lot from me that I once took for granted. My husband is not a part of our baby’s appts. I go by myself each time, and each time I have a small, niggling fear that something will be wrong and I’ll have no support system there with me. It has taken my church safe haven. At a time when I need the support from my brothers and sisters in Christ, our church has been shut down due to the virus affecting several in our congregation. Even when services resume, I won’t be there because I don’t feel safe going. I’ll watch online, but it’s not the same. The virus has also affected my perception of school starting back in August. My daughter will be attending one of the largest high schools in the state. How will the school manage? Will she be safe? What if there’s no school on-site and everything is done virtually? How is she going to concentrate with a newborn and toddler in the house, and how in the world am I going to help her with subjects I haven’t taken in 20 years? The quadratic formula, endoplasmic reticulum, metaphysical poetry, and the legislative processes are all concepts that I am familiar with but that I have no working knowledge of because they’re far removed from my daily life. If she struggles, that means I’ve got a lot of dusting off of cobwebs in my brain, and I’m not exactly looking forward to it.

Another thing that chaps my ass is the constant conspiracy theories and the abundance of people turning daily occurrences into rhetoric for their political agendas and end-of-times prophesies. Take for instance the coin shortage. We’re running out of change so we must be nearing the end. Just like when Y2K was approaching. We were all doomed. Just like when Barack Obama was President. He was the anti-Christ. (insert eye-roll to all of the above). I’m no Bible expert but here’s what I do know. The anti-Christ is so cunning and so sneaky that if you think you know who that person is, you’re already wrong because that is how people will be deceived…nobody will have a clue until it’s too late. People proclaim to know when the Rapture will take place but the Bible clearly states that no man knows the time or hour. Any preacher who tells you otherwise is misled. Of course the end-times are approaching. Every day we’re here makes our last days closer to coming to fruition but there’s no need to panic about it. Not every government recommendation is akin to having a chip inserted in your body or having 666 permanently marked on your forehead. People need to get a grip.

I continue to be bothered by the Black Lives Matter / All Lives Matter debate, the tearing down of monuments, the “peaceful protests” that continue to result in murders of cops, innocent civilians (including children), and hatred for the President. First of all, as the Press Secretary stated earlier this week in her briefing, she is dismayed at the fact that she fielded multiple questions about the Confederate flag but not one regarding the lawlessness rampant in our nation’s cities that resulted in the murder of a black girl. If black lives truly matter, then where is the outrage? Do they only matter when injustices are done at the hands of white cops? Secondly, many presidents have heralded the masterpiece and example of innovation that Mount Rushmore represents and have lauded its grandeur and beauty, yet when Donald Trump makes a speech there he’s a racist pig. It’s not enough to tear down a monument. Now we should tear down a whole mountain, because that is SO going to solve economic disparities among the races and the breakdown of the family unit, both of which are paramount problems that need to be addressed in our country. The list goes on and on…defunding the police and investing that money into “social programs” sounds like a great idea to some until you actually need a first responder to come to your aid. May as well just go ahead and call the coroner because you’re not getting help. Oh, the political elite will have their guards and security measures to ensure their safety. They’ll have their fences and walls. You, however, as an average citizen will not. Better get a gun for protection before they take that away, too. Good luck finding ammo for it.

However, what I’m mostly disturbed about today is how what I’ve relayed in the above paragraphs has led to a circumstance that has been most troubling to me and the catalyst for why I am deactivating Facebook for the next few months to take my little smoke break. A former student’s political agenda and view of the black lives matter movement led her to share something so utterly horrific that it boggles the mind. She didn’t fact-check the video she shared- she didn’t bother to do a single thing except click the share button and let her little narrative play out to incite more hate and stir the pot. It involved two while males with a Confederate flag in the background engaging in the murder of a black woman. Their method was the same as my son’s suicide, so as I was scrolling my news feed I literally saw an image of something that was so eerily similar to what I personally witnessed the morning of July 10th, 2017 that it made me freeze. I was so appalled that it was there for all the world to see that I immediately clicked on the video to scroll the comments to see what could be learned. Who was the girl? When did she die? Were the perpetrators punished? It took all of a minute to realize that it was a set-up. The girl was complicit in the act. She didn’t die. It was the intro to a friggin’ porn scene. Snopes.com verified that it was a fake video of a murder that has been circulating for years. The reason Facebook kept taking it down wasn’t because they were trying to mask the horror of a black murder done at the hands of white people, but rather because it wasn’t a true story. It was fake, and I didn’t deserve to see that, especially today. Not this month. Not when the memories of such a horrifying morning are so close to the surface. The fact that anyone is so desensitized to even post such a graphic video proudly on social media is not only appalling but disgusting. That was the tipping point for me.

I’m taking my smoke break. You can find me on Instagram metaphorically puffing away as I share videos of Carlen’s daily activites and recipes for foods that I shouldn’t be eating but that are comforting to me- especially the good stuff like desserts. I bake because it makes me feel like I’m doing something that Carter would love, and I try to cling to whatever good memory I have with him in the kitchen by continuing to “bake the world a better place”.

Speaking of memories…one of the last points of my FB status rant was to encourage people to put down their phones and actually engage in real life to make those special memories. Too many of us spend time in a virtual reality keeping up with celebrities we’ll never meet, watching Tik Toks of people we don’t know, laughing at animal memes, being triggered by political rants, and being secretly envious of others who are living their best filtered lives. We’re looking down at our screens and missing out on what’s living and breathing right beside us. Precious moments are playing out right before our eyes that keep getting distracted by people and things that are on You Tube. What a shame that our actual treasures are within reach but we don’t make the time to see them.  Our children are craving our attention. Our marriages are crumbling because we touch our phones more than we touch each other. We’re comparing ourselves and our lives to things that aren’t even real. Social media has lied to us, and we’re consumed by it. Addicted to it. And none of it matters. What matters is the here and now spent with those that we love. Let’s endeavor to make the most of the time we have. We’re not promised tomorrow.

In light of today’s post, I’m sharing a funny picture of Carter “smoking” a fake cigar as part of his last Halloween costume in 2016. He was a gangster and played the part really well all decked out in his little suit. He had us cracking up all night. His sweet innocence juxtaposed with the mobster persona of that night was truly memorable. My, how our precious Carterbug is missed. He is loved. He is treasured. And he will always be remembered.