I hope you dance...

Hello again.. I hope everyone is staying healthy. We are all well. Staying quarantined in our tiny mobile unit. We have moved into Arkansas, where the world is much quieter.

I want to take a moment to tell you about the precautions we are taking, so you can feel assured we are not exposing ourselves, OR the communities we visit, unnecessarily to “The Virus.” We are remaining more than 6 feet from everyone. We stay in our site mostly. And the places we’ve been staying since the outbreak are remote and unpopulated. Yes, we traveled to the beach for surf lessons. We stayed 6 feet away from everyone except the instructor. There were very few people at the beach… I’ve never seen a beach so empty except in the winter (at home), and it was 85 degrees. Nothing was closed in Panama City Beach when we arrived, but everyone was still keeping their distance. We didn’t visit any attractions; we have not eaten at a restaurant since we went to Tarpon Springs (in February, before the outbreak); and we’ve only gotten delivery once, while we were in Fort Meyers, again, before news of the outbreak. The only largely populated event/area we have been to was the Strawberry Festival in Plant City on March 5th. It has been more than 14 days since that possible exposure, and no one is feeling ill.

I have this overwhelming sense of guilt for not being locked in our home in Maine. I have a terrible feeling in my gut that we are being judged for taking this trip, for not returning home. These feelings are kicking up my stress, which in turn in kicking up my tics (Tourette’s sucks guys) and causing my jaw to hurt again. No insurance means no more botox, so that means I need to deal with this somehow. So, rather than telling you all about our campground, I guess I just need to write this personal piece. Try to explain our decision, although I suppose some might say no explanation is necessary and others may say no explanation is worth the risk. But for me, and after the last year, which I mostly kept to myself and didn’t share publicly, this was the only thing I could do to survive.

I hope as you read this blog each time we post that you aren’t judging us. This trip was absolutely 100% necessary for my mental health. I was the driving force behind this trip. For lots of reasons, Mike was hesitant to take this leap, and I kept pushing and pushing, until one day I told him if he wasn’t on board, I needed to take a trip on my own, for my sanity I would need to leave for a while. At the time, there was no “virus” on the horizon. No global pandemic, no end of the world, no “Fear the Walking Dead” scenario that we, as typical US citizen’s, saw coming. So, if you are judging us, please take this into consideration: I spent the last year in my own personal hell. It was emotional, no, emotional doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was terrible, it was heart breaking, I truly believed I could not heal from it. I thought my life was irreparably destroyed; my heart was permanently broken. I was betrayed, I was attacked over and over and over again. When I did what was recommended, someone would say I did more damage, when I did nothing, that was the wrong choice too. There was no winning, so satisfying my abusers. Right up until I stopped allowing it, someone was trying to punish me for things I never did. Lies, investigations, false accusations, and in the end, I gave up, I gave in, because I realized, with a lot of help from a lot of people, that the time had come to protect myself. The time had come to accept the change, accept that no one was going to believe me or take me seriously. That the people who should have listened to me were never going to, that my recollection of events was irrelevant, that things were never going to be the way they were before. I realized that I had to stop fighting and move forward toward a new normal. So, this trip, if it’s anyone’s doing, anyone’s fault that we are not quarantined in Maine, it is mine.

My husband, he is a saint. He has put up with all the chaos I have caused. With all my ups and downs. All my breakdowns. All my mania. All my anger that he took the brunt of. All my emotions that had to come out and I just couldn’t hold in. I tried, I really, really tried. But I wasn’t always successful… actually, I usually wasn’t successful. And he stood by me. Why? I have NO idea. I am the luckiest girl on the planet. I wasn’t pleasant to be around. I didn’t hold up my end of the household duties. I didn’t treat anyone nicely. I was pissed, so at times, I made everyone around me pissed. It’s a terrible thing, to lose someone so important to you, someone so much a piece of you, someone who is still walking this earth but you can’t hold anymore, and to grieve that loss. There have been (and continue to be) so many stages of this grief, so many gains only to lose again. One step forward, two steps back. And you know who is there when I fell back? Mike. Mike is there for me. There were so many others who have been there for me as well. I am not discounting you. But the man who took the brunt of all of this, he stayed. For better and worse, in sickness and health. He is still with me. For that I am astounded. I am grateful. I am blessed.

If you are judging, please also consider this: Mike and Callie are both immunocompromised. They are the vulnerable you hear about on the news. They need protecting. If we had turned around in Florida when the news hit and headed home, do you know where we would have had to go? Right through the epicenter of this mess. Right through New York. Either through the city or around it, but there was no way for us to return home without going near it. And IF we had turned around, just as we were passing through NY, the worst of the outbreak would have hit. We would have been exposing Mike and Callie to the virus. They could have become The Walking Dead. It’s not as simple as just driving through it. We need gas, we need bathrooms, the dogs need to get out of the vehicle. We would have had to stop for the night in these places that are now completely locked down. We would have returned to our homestead, but I would have had to go to work, and be exposed to possible infection on a daily basis. I would have been going into very busy stores to get our food and supplies, and again, facing possible infection. But it’s not me I am worried about catching “the virus,” it is my family. My immunocompromised. I could have infected them.

Here, where I sit in the Ozarks, the sun is shining on me. There is no one remotely near us. There is fresh air blowing over me as I write this post to you. We are nowhere near the infected. We drove 800 miles to get around Louisiana, another epicenter, to keep our family safe. Right now, Callie is doing cartwheels in the grass. Do you know how long it had been since we had seen her smile the kind of smile that reaches into your eyes? How long since we had seen her be truly happy? Years. I’ll say that again so you can take a moment to think on it… Years.

So, if you are judging us, please don’t. We are so far from home, and home is sicker than where we are. We are using sanitizer. We are washing our hands. We are social distancing. We are living in a dispersed situation. We are healing from a life changing year. We are rebuilding a broken family who all suffered a tremendous loss last year. And to top it all off, we lost my Gram, just a week before we left.

She was so central to my life as a child and as an adolescent. I have so many memories of being with her growing up. And as I grew, she taught me so much. She taught me to be a better, more patient mother, to be a loving and supporting wife. She taught me when to fight and when to shrug my shoulders and walk away. (I’m still working on that part Gram, I’ll get it right one of these days).

Leaving wasn’t easy for us. We were scared to death. But we took the leap, we had faith, and guess what? We are surviving. We are healing. We are thriving. We are experiencing life, instead of just going through the motions.

When the world is different, when the paralyzing fear of the virus passes and people return to whatever normal will look like then, I hope you all get the chance to take a trip like this. To see a bald eagle fly above your head like we did today. To camp next to a turquoise river that has slowly carved itself through the bedrock over the centuries. I hope you relive Spring every few weeks, like we have twice now. From Florida to the Ozarks in Arkansas, we watched the world change from a tropical summer, to a brand-new spring. I hope you take the time to see the trees bloom, watch the grass green, feel the air change and warm up, then move again and watch it all happen again. Until then, please don’t judge. Just love one another. Do the best you can for your tribe, and for crying out loud, wash your stinkin’ hands!

“I hope you never lose your sense of wonder You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger May you never take one single breath for granted God forbid love ever leave you empty handed I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

I hope you dance”

-Lee Ann Womack