The pandemic did not isolate me from others; it merely solidified the vines I’d allowed to grow around me into solid walls.
An ongoing theme in this recent phase is that I’m not doing this in order, so I suppose I’ll make it a running gag. Ahem: this may not make sense at first! 
Here’s the short version: I am sensitive in ways that make it difficult to be around others.
I think of it as “a person crashes over me”.
I have various coping mechanisms, though I could probably split my life in two phases: slow burn and relaxed mode. Slow burn is where the sustained stresses of my sensitivity build to a level I can no longer ignore, and I have frequently relied on extreme applied dynamics.
Which happens to often coincide housing displacement and/or unemployment. So inter-resting!
“Relaxed mode” is a combination of pure luck, privilege, compassion, Susan, changing internal alchemy, and a significant intentional effort on my part. And on the flipside it allowed me to retreat into my expanding percosm, here at the dawn of the information age.
Along a different perspective I would also split my life in two associated, yet asymmetrical, phases: not safe and relatively safe (because c’mon, I’m talking about surviving childhood abuse and displacement to live in post-Cold War/Clipper-chip/9-11/reality show/soma-tech/semiotic-breakdown-and-reconstruction to now, and witnessed a mugging a few days ago… what does “safe” even mean?). And putting that exhaustive nested thought aside, I would point out I passed into the threshold of “relatively safe” and stayed in a state of near drowning for probably close to a decade. Maybe longer. 
So now I’m over here in the timeline, at the convergence of “relatively safe” and “relaxed mode”.
And also my internal pendulum is swinging outwards once more.
operation reconnection is about reconnecting with the most astounding, painful, wonderful, mesmerizing experiences of my life: people.
I hope at least two of my dimensions are able to withstand the next steps. I’ve imagined a future where I am able.
