Looking out my Backdoor: Stick, stab and jab at the lab

Have you ever felt like you don’t really know what’s happening until it’s over?

If I’m not around people to mirror back to me what I’m doing or saying, it is easy to fool myself. When I begin to fool myself, it is easy to slip back into unhealthy behaviors from my past.

A few days ago I told my daughter, “I think I’m mildly depressed.”

“Ya think!” she replied, with THAT tone of voice. Truth be told, what I was fishing for was sympathy. I’d cast my line in the wrong pond. Dee Dee is a family counselor, specializing in trauma. She tells it like it is, no holds barred.

Isolation is fine if it is balanced with enough social interaction. Honest social interaction. I’d quit sharing my fears. For good reason, I thought, because they are so petty. Wrong thinking. Share those petty fears before they find food and grow up into monsters.

When I voice to my petty fears, I can hear myself, laugh at myself and say, that’s silly, based on nothing real. When I don’t let my fears talk, they build and grow like a pile of dirt against the weeds in a wind storm.

So I got all spun up over nothing. Had I shared my fears with friends, they would have laughed, with or at me, put me in my place. My place is a good place. But, no, I had to go dig my own pit and that is not my good place.

It’s just little stuff, no worse than getting a speck of dust in one’s eye. Started when the governor of Jalisco announced a shipment of vaccine was on the way to our state, so if one is 60 or older, sign up for your shot using this simple online procedure. Uh, huh. I tried. Tried. Tried. Gave up in frustration.

Leo took my information home to his computer and signed me up. He did the same for John and Carol.

Next step was supposed to be an email and phone call with one’s appointment time. Nobody called. Again, saved by our gardener. The shipment arrived, right here in Etzatlan! Yes, in our little village. Big ceremony. Important people. Speeches. The usual. I read about it in the news.

Since I hadn’t been contacted, I immediately plunged into the “what’s-the-use” swamp. Shrug. Meanwhile, Leo saved the day for me and John and Carol. He took our paperwork to the appropriate people and secured our appointment time. For three days later.

By now I’m so stuck in my own mud that I just knew they’d run out of vaccine before they got to me. Believe me, I’m not usually like this.

We showed up dressed like polar bears on the very cold morning, clutching our wads of paperwork. I noticed that a lot of people also had their electric bills in hand. Again, Leo rescued us. Yes, indeedy, we needed proof of actual domicile. Again, Leo rescued us and sent John racing back to our casas for our latest bills. Just in time. Like a mother hen with her chicks, Leo herded us through the steps.

From this point on, we went through the procedure as slick as butter on toast. We moved through three waiting areas on the blocked-off street, presented paperwork, got the actual jab, presented paperwork for second sign-up, waited a half-hour to make sure of no dire effects, and were released. Each station was outdoors, in open air. Everybody, and I mean everybody, wore double masks.

For the actual shot, arm bared from two sweaters and a sarape, I turned my head, squinched my eyes. The nurse laughed, told me I was done. I hadn’t even felt it.

While waiting between the jab and home, the woman next to me asked Leo if I was his grandmother. Leo explained that I was his patron, a gringo. “A gringo!” The woman burst into laughter. “A gringo!” It was funny. We all laughed. Leo and I look nothing alike. He has a Pancho Villa mustache.

The real revelation came after I returned home. Such a simple thing. A vaccination. You’d have thought I’d won the lottery. My entire attitude swung back around from the dregs in the bottom of the empty cup to the full, steaming, satisfying cup of morning coffee.

I had not realized I’d lost my future. Misplaced it. Stuck it in the closet and locked the door. But that is what I had done. Now I’ve turned a corner and feel like my lost feet are back on the path.

I’m not ready to buy tickets to fly off into the wild blue yonder. We are nowhere near “herd immunity.” A strange expression. The sooner we join the herd, the safer we all will be.

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Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at http://montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com/. Email sondrajean.ashton@yahoo.com.