{"id":6260,"date":"2015-12-12T21:34:26","date_gmt":"2015-12-13T02:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=6260"},"modified":"2019-05-15T13:49:27","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:49:27","slug":"alone-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=6260","title":{"rendered":"Alone again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I was entirely alone for the first time in four weeks. No nurses and doctors, no Tom, no caregiver except for my orange plastic bottles of prescription drugs.<\/p>\n

I slept a lot. I felt more relaxed than I have in a month.<\/p>\n

It is yet another dimension of realization about how much I take on from other people. 
\nI’m always carrying some anxiety about how my actions or my negligence affect other people. I feel guilty every day over emails left unanswered, and I worry about what happened to every person I met in Syria 21 years ago. <\/p>\n

Even when I was just out of brain surgery, when I should have been rejoicing to be alive, I was worrying about Tom, my family, my colleagues in Pakistan. Even when in the midst of nearly relentless pain this week, I was trying to help my US coworkers to wrap up a financial report, anxious to make sure the numbers all added up correctly.<\/p>\n

This is not praiseworthy. <\/p>\n

I am supposed to be recovering and relaxing, but instead I have been fretting.<\/p>\n

Stress is no good for healing. I know this. I take deep breaths, I think of peaceful places, I try to savor my food. <\/p>\n

It is easier when there is no one else here, because I don’t have to worry about how my condition and my demands affect them. <\/p>\n

But still I feel lonely, whether people are around or not. The only time I don’t feel lonely is when I am in Tom’s arms. <\/p>\n

At least he will be here tomorrow – and with him, my sister Ann, who has cared for me since I was born. Maybe they can help me recapture the infantile self that didn’t yet know how to worry.<\/p>\n

Today’s penny is a 1994, for the year I was in Syria.<\/p>\n

 \"\"<\/a> 
\n[Note: Although I have not been posting during my recuperation, I have been taking notes every day. Over the rest of this month, I hope to catch up on the missing posts, which will be published by the events of the date they capture.] <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I was entirely alone for the first time in four weeks. No nurses and doctors, no Tom, no caregiver except for my orange plastic bottles of prescription drugs. I slept a lot. I felt more relaxed than I have in a month. It is yet another dimension of realization about how much I take … read more Alone again<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[318],"tags":[235,491,493,492,504,489,490],"class_list":["post-6260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-refraction","tag-235","tag-anxiety","tag-brain","tag-loneliness","tag-recovery","tag-syria","tag-worry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6260"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6264,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6260\/revisions\/6264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}