{"id":5057,"date":"2020-05-13T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T04:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/?p=5057"},"modified":"2020-05-12T22:34:55","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T05:34:55","slug":"5057","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2020\/05\/5057\/","title":{"rendered":"When It’s Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I had to get out and be by myself. This is a whole lot of\ntogetherness. I wanted my thoughts to myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grabbed my headphones and went for a walk.  I picked a sad soulful song, and as I walked\nI felt so free I sang out loud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like it was my first time and I didn’t know that I was out\nloud and in a wobbly key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time I did know, but I was glad to be alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking past all my neighbors\u2019 backyard fences I wondered if\nI was actually alone. My voice could carry into their backyards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was okay with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was worth it to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shelter in place situation is asking me to learn a new\nway of being. Learn to get along with my housemates\/family in new ways. New\ncoping tools to get through the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And revive old coping tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember my cassette Walkman as a teenager. I remember\nlearning what it meant to sing with the headphones in my ears. Embarrassing! I\ndid not sound as good as I though. I learned not to sing out loud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But today, why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a good song, and I could sing! Even if someone\nMIGHT hear me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could dance, even though people can<\/em> see me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This house arrest is not the boss of me. I am not going to\nplay small. I get to choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m not hurting anybody with my steps. That’s what I came\nhere for, to clear up my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To remember who I am and what I love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven’t lived through a pandemic before. But to borrow a\nphrase, I’ve had apocalypse-adjacent experiences. Remember the nuclear war that\nnever happened?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is happening, and I am willing to be messy while I am\nliving through it. I want to be messy in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be messy more as my truest happiest self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that involves singing and dancing while loving and\nhiding from my family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s me choosing life. Let there be light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had to get out and be by myself. This is a whole lot of togetherness. I wanted my thoughts to myself. I grabbed my headphones and went for a walk.  I picked a sad soulful song, and as I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5057"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5063,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions\/5063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}