I Drive, Therefore I Think

Turns out I'm having an even harder time with time than usual these days. I've described before how my internal calendar was destroyed when my husband worked four days on and four days off for four years. Without a school schedule or a going-to-an-office schedule of my own, time was very flexible. Now it's worse. There's almost nothing to differentiate one day from another. For one thing, we used to see our grandson twice a week and I never had trouble remembering when I got to go cuddle and coo. The only other constant was church, which we're doing by Zoom. That means sitting at my computer some more. It's sort-of church, but I miss going there and having the in-person fellowship. Not to mention going out to lunch afterwards. Currently, time is an amorphous, endless blob. I'm busy enough, concentrating on finishing projects that I never seemed to have time for. But one day last week I found that I'd totally lost my grasp on time--I forgot a very good friend's birthday. We've known each other for 30 years and that was a first. I remembered, I think, because I for an hour's drive. I had to see my chiropractor. I'd been putting it off but the pain was worsening. He was closer when I started seeing him, but he moved twice and he's so good that I followed. That was the first time I'd driven my car since this virus started. I used to spend a great deal of time in the car, but now it was a special event. After the first half hour or so, ideas were tumbling out of my head. Things to do and things to tell people. Things that had been dormant through the long winter and then had no chance to sprout as I figured out how to deal with sheltering at home. I pulled into a parking lot so I could jot them down. The thing is that I was alone. I'm not alone much anymore and there are many positives about this. But ruminating isn't one of them. Even if I am alone, there are dozens of distractions around the house. I'm thinking that I need to go for a solo drive every week. I could switch off cars, and tune up the motors and my mind at the same time.