View from the North 40: Please, sit. We need to talk

It’s not you, it’s me. And I’m really sorry, but I’m breaking up with you.

I have to go away for a while and sort some things out. I don’t plan on this breakup lasting forever, but you should know that my brain is broken, so it’s a possibility.

I know, my brain always has been set a hair off center, but I like to think that it’s in an off-beat, weirdly charming sort of way. COVID, though, B-R-O-K-E it.

So, yeah, I am seriously going to take time off from writing and publishing my column.

Something has to give. For real.

I didn’t come to this conclusion lightly.

I have a lot of pride in having written a new column each and every week for more than 15 years – no matter rain, shine, power outages, computer failure, vacation, work overload, the occasional serious case of the bleh-nothin’s-funny-itis (a real syndrome), injury (like my concussion and that time my eye was poked out), disaster, house guests or illness — even COVID, which I got in mid-March.

But there came a moment during COVID when my brain went kaput, right square in the language center. Not in a funny way, either. It was a broke-down-alongside-the-road-with-an-oil-slick-pooling-across-the-asphalt-and-smoke-pouring-out-from-under-the-hood-and-then-all-the-wheels-just-fell-off-the-hubs kind of broken.

I’ve been cobbling it together as if I know how to be a brain mechanic — but, y’know, I’m a persistent DIY’er.

I’ve regained a lot of what I lost, but the problems that remain are not improving just by “doing.”

It’s like that time I got injured pretty badly and gave up riding for ever — I even sold my good riding horse — only to have the pain and diminished strength issues fixed three years later by a few sessions of yoga. Huh.

This taught me that actually going to a doctor and doing physical therapy at the start would’ve fixed what just “powering through” the chores and work couldn’t repair.

I know, I was even more surprised than you are right now at that realization.

And you’d think that harsh lesson would’ve learned me. But no.

Then came the time I got bronchitis really bad and didn’t go to the doctor because who goes to the doctor for a runny nose and a cough?

Four weeks later, a weak shell of myself from all the coughing, I finally gave in. (Health tip: The doc said snotting enough to drown yourself and hacking up a lung is “not just a runny nose and a cough,” and if it persists longer than two weeks, it’s time to seek medical attention. You’re welcome.)

So then, six months, two separate lung infections and a touch of diminished lung capacity later, and I really did learn the lesson to take health problems seriously — and early on — even though I missed zero column deadlines during all this. Like a superhero.

The point is, I’m not untrainable, although you may disagree with me there if you are any good at all at counting on your fingers. Because if you are, you’ve already figured out that it’s been three months since I first got sick and that’s quite a chunk of time to let pass before admitting there’s a problem.

In my defense, though, I spent two weeks of that time sick at home, then it was a good three weeks before I could work a full half-day without needing a nap after lunch like I’m a fancy Mediterranean taking a sixth-hour siesta. That was normal for COVID. For the next four to five weeks I was making great progress recovering … until a big writing project either showed me where my new limitations are, or it tried to kill me.

Either way, the results are the same. It’s like reaching a plateau and finding it full of sinkholes and land mines. That’s where I am.

Everybody is being understanding, which is both nice and the worst.

Being able to write more than one or two 300-word briefs per week and having the intellectual capacity to synthesize information from different sources into a cohesive flow of sentences are a condition of my current employment. That’s fair.

Plus my husband is used to me flashing him the crazy eyes when he disturbs me with real world matters while I’m on deadline, but having regular full-blown meltdowns every time I have to write something is not conducive to a healthy home life.

And, frankly, meltdowns discourage me from wanting to write at all — it’s hard to be a writer, let alone a humor columnist, when your brain shuts off and your flight mechanisms kick in. Or maybe that’s just me.

This, though, is what my life has come to.

I also made a doctor’s appointment — unprompted — an action so out of character and horribly grownup of me that I think I’ll cite it as another strange symptom.

“Well, doc, my issues are: 1) lack of stamina, 2) difficulty processing new information, 3) difficulty articulating new information in writing, and 4) I’m here, aren’t I?”

What this means for you and me is I’m taking a few weeks off, maybe a month. I may also recycle some old columns for a bit — surely at some point in 15-and-a-half years I’ve written something that won’t make me respond with “ugh” and launch pencils at my computer screen.

Rest assured, though, the plan is to get back together with you, if you’ll have me.

——

I know, even temporary breakups are tough, but I still want to remain friends. Literally. I’ll keep in touch at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .