Time to Whine: Feeling bird-brained and caged in

I had previously...mistakenly...believed that I was a strong, resilient person; capable of effortlessly and (now I'm ashamed to admit) heroically facing and overcoming any challenge that life might throw at me. Boy...was I ever wrong.

This situation...of extended, seemingly-eternal solitude... is turning me into a sulker...a chronic complainer...and I won't lie...a bit of a b*tch. "But Amy," you say soothingly, trying to console me, "You exhibited ALL of these traits well before the Corona out-break." Thanks. However, now all of my cute little quirks have exacerbated exponentially...to Olympic-level proportions. I would get a gold metal in grumbling. A silver in snide remarks. and bronze for breaking into tears for no apparent reason.

Case in point:  There I was the other morning, donned in Day 3 of the same pajamas, precariously balancing my breakfast of yogurt, string cheese, tangerine, and a small container of blueberries when I decided to test my luck, reaching into a cupboard to add a Hostess Snowball (purple!) to my stack of snacks. To the surprise of no one, other than me, I dropped EVERYTHING...my blueberry container exploding and an avalanche of blue balls swept across my kitchen floor. Oh my goodness! See how this insanity has changed me? Normally I would giggle like an immature adolescent after typing "blue balls" but in light of a world pandemic...I could only muster a mere chuckle.  Typically in this type of situation, I would momentarily mourn the loss of my beloved blueberries and then, factoring in my filth-laden floor (which in-and-of-itself could possibly be the source of a future planetary pandemic), I would wastefully sweep up all those blue bombs and toss them in the garbage. But not any more. Oh no. These are troubled times. My first reaction to that morning's tragedy was to burst into tears. As I sat amidst a floor littered with small blueberry boulders, I took inventory of what I STILL had and gave thanks for my Hostess Snowball and string cheese. Then, taking a deep breath, I got to work and carefully plucked each blueberry from the floor with the precise concentration of Mr. Miyagi trying to catch flies with chopsticks. I carefully washed my contaminated fruit...(I can hear you, by the way, Cathy..."Why don't you wash the floor NEXT, Amy.")...and resumed breakfast, grateful that I had survived the first of that day's hurdles.

It feels like EVERYTHING takes a tremendous amount of effort. And my reactions to everything have been magnified to a terrifying level. I constantly argue now with my cockatiel. The feathered fiend appreciates NOTHING. I change his water and he rushes at me like an enraged raptor. Every time I even walk by, he attempts to attack me. "I get it," I snarled at him, "I'm feeling caged up too but we have to work together." I paused as he tried to peck me. I cannot believe that I'm now spending my days talking to a bird, I thought dismally. And then, naturally, I burst into tears. A perfectly...pandemically...way to respond.