Life Inside

COVID

In the new normal of Covid-19, long days have shifted into a variety of chores. First, there is scrubbing, prepping, grocery delivery, and cooking of food. At 78, I don’t dare step into a store anymore, masked or barefaced. Then there’s bill paying and checkbook balancing. Finally, there’s a new foray into tech misery with telemedicine doctor appointments for my virus-vulnerable 81-year-old hubby. I am also trying to keep all his monitoring devices breathing, beeping, and pumping.

Despite our sheltering in place, I am not experiencing isolation. Loneliness bows to familiar faces coping and commiserating on videoconferencing platforms. As I reduce expectations of myself and everybody else, I draw joy from the imperfect achievements of home mani-pedis and flyaway hair. The importance of the sloppy coif, the untaken trip, and the canceled visits has changed. Last week I cared. This week I can barely remember them. While life in the outer world has changed, following the FA program hasn’t.

I still practice all the tools of my program. I pray every morning and night for the willingness to follow the directions that keep me abstinent. I call my sponsor at exactly 7:15 every morning. I still assiduously weigh and measure my food and stick to the advice my sponsor lays out for me. I dutifully zoom into three meetings a week, write down my feelings instead of eating them, share those feelings at meetings, and make three outreach phone calls daily. By keeping the right foods available and reading our required literature every day, I let God have a chance to direct my thinking and actions. If I do my tools, it doesn’t matter how shaky it gets out in the world. Life inside with FA is good enough for me.