Being Housebound Sucks

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"Let me out! I just want to see a coffee shop and the library again!"

You feel like winter will never end. You don't get to go out and do things other people do. For me it is a dismantling of my entire life over and over. My church probably thinks I have dropped out. I have not seen but 4 human beings in the last month. Food is tasteless. I am addicted to the Internet. I watch shows and read books where people have actual lives and go live theirs instead of having one.  County jail time at this conjuncture in my life would be nothing compared to the sentences served inside. Involuntary pseudo "house arrest" on a tether made of temperature is the norm for me. When do I get to escape. I can mentally gear up for some months like this for winter and time in summer but when it gets too long the tears begin.

Last night I missed a dinner with friends, social invitations don't come to me as often as other people,
and when you disappoint people over and over, it only adds to the lonely and frustrated feeling. It was a Mensa dinner too and I have wanted to attend one for awhile. I'm not a member but wanted to see what it was like.  The friends came to visit me after their dinner but I wanted to shake my fist at the sky and scream as the temperatures stayed in the teens.  Today my husband is writing on a festival, I wouldn't mind going to and will miss. The cold and heat never let up, our weather has grown worse.

I had two months of illness from Dec-Jan. I do not know why I am not being spared when it is almost March. I need some air.  I need a vacation. I need to see some people.  The four walls of this apartment I pay way too much for are closing in. Paying for my cage and then guilty thinking "Oh don't complain, there are homeless people out there.". You could be freezing your butt off on a park bench.  More guilt thinking there are people stuck in nursing homes and even totally bedbound, it could be worse. Cursing the lungs and the body for the live unlived. Internet addiction grows. Doing the day to day chores from dishes to the walk down the hall feel like a walkway to nothingness.

So many things delayed, paper work for adoption, getting glasses, getting a digital hearing aid, going to counseling because I am like a rat in the cage and the temperature refuses to budge to 30-32, where I could escape. I feel for my husband who is having to do every errand alone including mountains of paperwork. I imagine Mini-Me happily driving around, and the Queen Spider enjoying her warm Florida days eating dinner out and at her community center while life for me narrows. Healing would come quicker with a good life to replace my bad memories.

Maybe I should move to a new climate, but I am tired of moving, tired of starting over, tired of goodbyes. So much has already been ripped away and I do not know how to replace it. The only climate that would work is Seattle and northwestern Washington State, but I don't have money to make the over thousands of mile trip to even see if I like it there. I've never been there. The cost of living means I would be living in a cardboard box on the street too. Heat does the same thing and could trap me as bad as the cold so moving to a more southern climate won't work either though if I was rich and could snow bird it, life would be far easier. Why did I get COPD so young when I never smoked in my life?

Then I was walking in the apartment hall for my exercise and saw two 80 something women going out shopping in 5 degrees. One had several shopping bags. How do they breathe out there? It gave me a strange feeling. How do they not fall out there on the snow and ice? Even with a walker the slightest bit of slush seems to make my feet act like a cartoon character slipping on thin ice.

I talk to doctors about this, they know I am stuck inside all the time, and the mobility and breathing issues. They tell me "Do your best," and "Don't push it" and admit there are reasons that if I tried to go out in 10 degrees, I would be seeing the ER. My circulation and body even shut down beyond the breathing if I get too cold. When I was young, I would push it. Who wants to have no life? Everyone wants one.  I would even throw up and have many bad things happen to me. I've been dealing with housebound issues since 1999.

I do develop my "own little world" and always have something to do, trust me, I do not get bored but while I can mentally prepare myself for a certain period of time when it drags out too long, it gets wearing. I sometimes wish I could just get on a bus and go see something new, without risking homelessness because I spent the money on travel instead of rent. How did my life get so blah? Is it my fault?

I'm just so disappointed. It's March and I've actually been struggling with being stuck inside and more since mid-November. The winters seem to be getting longer and longer. The money shorter and shorter. You just want to have a life like everyone else does. You pray to God asking "Why me?".

I think of things to change this but remain so stuck. Stuck behind a wall of ice. I think of things that I want to do and the body and lack of money that prevent them drives me insane. I try to come up with other options and fall flat.  One dreams of a better life, and visas to be seen not an endless prison sentence.

Why Is My life So Rotten?