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94. COVID-19 One year later

My world shut down on March 13, 2020. Today is April 11, 2021. Things are getting worse.

Better and worse. I don’t overthink the loss, or try to imagine the specific living breathing people and their lost lives and the people they leave behind. Over 23,000 deaths. In Canada.

We have a vaccine. But it’s fraught with questions. Has it been approved because it is safe, or because we are desperate? Astra Zeneca may cause fatal blood clots. So government has decided it is not okay for people 55 and younger. I am 56. Once again, screwed by being at the tail end of the baby boom. So now I weigh up the physical and mental risks of prolonged self-isolation, versus the risks of getting COVID-19, versus the risks of getting a vaccine induced blood clot.

The roll-out of the vaccine has been a disaster. Slow. They are vaccinating the wrong people first. Vaccines are going to waste.

The communications as been a disaster. Inconsistent messaging. Sloppy messaging. A lacunae of messaging.

We had SARS in 2003 and H1N1 in 2009. Where’s the playbook?

People are talking about post-COVID-19 as being an era similar to the roaring ‘20s. I am ready.

In over a year I haven’t been to a supermarket. I haven’t been to a restaurant. I haven’t been to a concert. I haven’t been to a play. I haven’t had a friend over. I haven’t been in a friend’s house. I have seen a friend about 3 times in the year. I can’t go for a walk where I am not on high alert as people walk by with no masks and/or get too close. Breathing indoor condo air 24/7 irritates my throat. Stores are boarded up. The roads are empty. People have haunted eyes. I have lost weight because the burden of cooking every single meal is just much too much. Even for one. When you ask people how they are, they no longer say ‘fine’ or ‘good’ or ‘great’. Extraverts are crumbling. And now a year later, even introverts are crumbling too. It’s too much. There are no news stories except about death and potential death. Masks, vaccines, herd immunity. There is no news because no one is doing anything. News reporters are stuck in their homes (basements, hallways, closets). Oh! One more story. About how for some people a year later there has been no full recovery. Difficulty breathing. Other new health problems. No matter, in the statistics we count them as ‘cured’.

I struggle to read for pleasure. My salvation has been Nintendo Switch Animal Crossing New Horizons. Video games. What a blessed escape. There are no viruses on my tropical island. Every day animal villagers tell me I am a great person and it’s going to be a good day.

Church. Church semi-opened. Attend by appointment. No community communal (I never did it anyway - yuck - vindicated). No peace be with you hand shaking or fist bumping. No singing. What’s left? A hollow shell. I never went back. Although I need faith. I bought a gold cross and I rub it to draw strength as I need to. I bought a bible. Praying the pandemic is over before I read it cover to cover.

On the occasions when I see son XYZ, the only person in my bubble, we both wear masks and stay 6+ feet apart. Being desperate for contact, I have found a loophole - he is so tall, that we have the occasional hug, both masked, where we each turn our heads in the opposite direction. I am so short, and he is so tall, it may very well be 6 feet apart head to head. And then I wash my hands until they are raw.

I have had some emergency room hospital visits. Despite being in pain, I was oddly buoyed by wearing outdoor clothes, and having In Real Life human contact. Unreal.

I have to move. During a global pandemic. Feeling a bit hysterical.

Variants.

We are really screwed. I am really screwed.

The goal used to be to help others, to find fulfillment, to be happy, to live life to its fullest. There is a new goal now.

To make it out of this alive.

2.93 MILLION DEATHS WORLDWIDE. SO FAR.

93. COVID-19 Self-isolation Day 103. Depleted and Desperate

Feeling flat. Feeling stirred, not in the nicely stirred martini way.

Settled into the new normal. Days go by quickly. Cook. Churn away at the laptop. Fail at keeping the place clean. Worry about alley cat risk seeking son. Nothing to look forward to. Nothing really except getting a good price for my turnips in Animal Crossings New Horizon. My little virtual character is the only joy and joyful moments.

I did venture out - tried the golf range and was horrified. Too many young people (I sound like an old person. I like young people, but now they are deadly carriers). No masks. No spacing of the mats. Too many crowded people. It was crazy.

Back to my cell.

Son XYZ thinks, since there are no movie releases, we have already seen every movie available.

Every single one.

92. COVID-19 Self-Isolation, Day 67, New Reckoning

I knew it would be a process. With such a dramatic lifestyle change and life change, it had to be. And given how sudden and unprecedented all this is, I had no idea where I would go.

Today I feel like there has been a big shifting and settling. After the initial shock (3 weeks for me - of trying to work but just staring into space processing it all), then came the “fill-in” time - the trying to make some semblance of day-to-day work until it’s over, but unsettled and unable.

Over the weeks and months since lock-down, as I gathered the bits and pieces of information from the media, from articles, from friends, from facebook, from clients, and from suppliers, I now have enough pieces to realize that it will be years until it is “over”, and we will never go back.

A sliver of comparison was the Christmas after 9/11 when I went to Disney on Ice, and on the way out saw law enforcement with machine guns strategically positioned around the building - and with shock realized that moms and kids are a juicy target for terrorists. It shook me to my core. In Canada. But for the most part, life then went on as usual. This is different. Life is not going on as usual.

The easing of self-isolation that has begun doesn’t mean the virus will spread more slowly or to fewer people. It means that there is medical care for those who venture out and get sick. And those people who go first, and venture out, are likely to be those who are less concerned anyway, and likely less attentive to safe practices. So the rest of us will wait and watch and see how many die. Son XYZ is already out and about (4 different non-essential social trips today - biking, shopping, visiting, golfing), so I will wait and see if he becomes a carrier and kills me. I am resigned. I won’t fight the virus if I get it.

The things that give my life meaning (aside from motherhood and relationships, of course), are all the dilettante non-essential pleasures that pose high risks to my life. Restaurants (cutlery can kill you, even without a knife or fork stabbing you in the neck), concerts, theatre. Too many people, too many germs. Art galleries, museums. Too many people, too many germs. Gatherings. Too many people, too many germs. Even choir rehearsals - why would I risk it? This could mean years.

Years.

Guess what I am missing? Looking at other people. I miss 3-D real people. Not TV people or pixelated video game people, or me in the mirror or Son XYZ. I miss my almost daily dose of seeing faces and faces and faces.

I have dabbled in the Zoom social experiment. I don’t know what is missing in the experience, but it’s not for me. I don’t take pleasure in it, even with my pleasing friends, I am tired by it. I will try and avoid it. Given how hard I had to work to stay engaged with real 3-D people, which I did enjoy for moments, there’s no way I can bring myself to foster a Zoommunity.

Where does this leave me? Reconciled to catering to my introversion - losing contact with people. Thinking about my business as changed for the long-term. Not for the “in-between” until we ‘get back’. But perhaps for years. It also means the things that used to rock my boat, are on pause or stop. There won’t be much to look forward to.

My friends are shattering, and they are shattering in ways that may not be put-back-togetherable. It’s like all the tough stuff they would have had to otherwise endure (dying spouse, a partner who has had a split diagnosis of cancer/not cancer, dealing with the wake of a mentally ill hoarding sibling), has become unbearable for them when set against the COVID-19 backdrop. The people I used to lean on are crumbling. They will not bounce back.

67 days, and I have shifted and settled. I now think I understand the lay of the land, I have worked hard to keep my head above the depression/anxiety waterline and am still breathing. I can keep going.

I think this has given me the clarity I need to settle down and settle in. I understand my most important role is to be here for my kids. So that’s something. But if life is about anticipation and the joy of new experiences, there will be none of that. And I haven’t even mentioned travel!

The good old days are behind me.

Imagine that.

90. COVID-19, another kind or war, yet still a war

I watched a movie set during wartime. It was a romance. What was noteworthy was how the characters were always tempered in their joy.

It was impossible for them to feel unbridled happiness when that joy existed in a backdrop of death. That’s what this feels like.