Month: May 2020

It is almost June.  Quarantine for the Covid crap started back in March, (second week of). At that point in time I thought it couldn’t last too long.  Well, the joke is on me.

So, how do I, and others like me, move on without being able to move out?  How do we make peace with a world, a country, where everyone is just going on about their normal business?  They are not going to wait for this monster to go away.  In fact, we, the infirm,  are the problem children here.

I had a doctor’s office tell me I would HAVE to come in after June 6.  They would  no longer be doing telemed  visits after that time.   The lady on the phone said if the Governor of Texas said it was ok then it was ok.

I hope the doctor will have a better answer for me when I speak to him, but to be told that repeatedly was very upsetting.

As time goes on and my family has to go on about their business, I wonder how long I can stay inside.  We know more about the disease’s transmission’s patterns now.  We know that it takes direct exposure and it travels the best through droplets and needs a fairly large quantity of droplets, a sustained amount, to actually infect another person.  However, we also know people can carry the virus and have absolutely no symptoms.  This means we can do all the fever checks we want and still have no idea someone is sick.  The mask is the best prevention and a lot of folks just won’t wear one.

There just aren’t any guarantees.

So at what point does a person like me just loosen up and go out?

How do I keep an ounce of sanity and remain well?  I am finding coping mechanisms as I go.  I join my faith community on Friday nights for a half hour or more on Zoom.  That helps.

I talk to friends online; that helps.

My husband and I went to an Airbnb in the country for a few days; that was awesome!

I am trying to hang on to the awesome and let it carry me through the depressing part.

It is best to live one day at a time and not think about the future just now.

I talk to my kids on the phone almost every day.

We are going to see my son and his girlfriend from a safe distance by renting an Air bnb near them  for a couple of days.

We just have to do what we can.

When both kids move to new apartments, we will just move them and I will stay masked on the sidelines or maybe not go at all.

And I do yoga and BREATHE…

I try to remember what great privilege I have.  I have SO much.  I just pray for patience and guidance and above all: for others.

So, to all you fellow home bound folks and the people stuck with them:

Just Breathe!

 

 

 

Every time I turn on the tv, which is usually a mistake, I hear someone say the words, “The ‘New Normal’ “.  I don’t think that is a very apt phrase at all.  It is pithy.  This is not normal at all.   I don’t think labeling it as new + normal is going to make it any better.

Instead, I am concentrating, or trying to, on any little sparks of light that provide evidence of when this long, dark period of pandemic might be over.

I understand that it may not be totally over for years.  If the virus mutates we will have to have scientists that are faster than the mutations themselves, re-design the vaccines as we go.   That is a very tall order.

What I am waiting for is decent testing and good, life saving treatment.  A vaccine would be the real icing on the cake.

For me,  personally, that is what it will take in order for me to resume the life I once took for granted.  Otherwise I will need to continue as I  do now: I live life in the shadows and in perpetual stress over exposure: And you know what?

IT SUCKS!  AND I AM TIRED OF IT.

But I think everyone out there is tired of this too.  Some folks are so tired of it they have decided to pretend it isn’t there anymore.  We can call this attitude one of assumed ignorance or we can  call these people by the moniker: covidiots.

I understand why they want to act like it is all over!  I get it!  I also understand why they want to get back to work.  But as I have said before, it is a bad idea. The death toll and infection rates continue to climb.

So, I don’t get to play pretend with them and neither does my family.

There is no “New Normal.”  There is just the same damn thing.  At least that is how I feel.  I am struggling to feel normal at all.

This is getting old.  It hasn’t been fun or exciting in some time.

I am fortunate.  I can work from home and so can my husband.  I can face time my kids.  My husband and I are even getting away to a house in the remote countryside for a few days of renewal.  It will just be us and a pool and nothing else.  I can’t wait.

But in the meantime, as we move through another week of quarantine, all I can do is pray for patience and pray for those on the front lines and pray for those in the labs trying to stop this beast.

As to those I have labeled covidiots, I will pray for them too.