Quarantine, Pandemic, Life, Hostility, Etc.

We've been under quarantine since mid March. Out of work, out of school, at home, with each other. My boys were sent to work from home, my daughter's sole proprietor business closed, my youngest two girls told to do their schooling at home. 

I have changed. 

A lot. 

I'm harder. Much, much harder. I am angry. I am angry at how this pandemic has been mishandled, so badly mismanaged. I don't tolerate people who don't take it seriously any longer. I am furious at the fact that 77,000 people have died, and it seems to phase very few people. I go to the grocery and people don't socially distance, and few wear masks. People refuse to wear masks, shoot each other over that refusal, beat each other up - and for what? Wearing a mask is a courtesy to your fellow human beings. It shows that you respect the people around you, that you care enough about others that you understand that you very well could be asymptomatic and spreading and you don't want to share it with the people around you - especially the store employees who stand in one store for hours and breathe the same recycled air for 6,8,10 hours a day. These things should not be political arguments. They shouldn't require an "us vs. them" mentality.

I am tired. 

I am tired of reading, over and over, about the fact that people don't care about each other. I'm tired of not seeing my granddaughter. I'm tired of not seeing my older children. I'm tired of not going to the gym, or the library, or hiking. I'm tired of people treating each other so shitty. I get it - we are all tired. We are all short tempered and stuck in our homes and we want to go out and party and have a good time and we want things the way they were

**newsflash** 

they aren't going to go back that way

and being rude to your fellow human isn't going to help.

My son told me tonight that he's bored. He asked me what I do so I am not bored. 

I learn, I told him. I have spent the vast majority of this time educating myself. 

I'm learning so much about politics. About history. About medicine, anatomy, viruses, cell biology, and the list goes on. I finished my latest semester of school, the next one starts on the 18th, and I'm still learning. I spend my free time reading and following trails and journaling. 

I've written 94 pages of what's been happening since we began this quarantine and I have so much more to say. I have no idea what I will do with what I'm writing - maybe it's just for me, so I can look back on it and say, "Whoa, did I live through all of that?" 

I am NOT saying that I am perfect. Nope. Far from it. I know I'm lucky to have a house. I'm lucky that so far, no one's gotten sick - I've been tested twice, though. I'm lucky to know that we are all here together, even though the all together, all the time is sometimes all too much. I miss my gym time. My dogs drive me nuts - well, not Layla, she's pretty much perfect, haha, but we have a new dog and he's young and huge and loves to lick everything to death and runs all over and barks like crazy and is one and so basically an enormous puppy - and my kids are home, all the time, and because everyone is insecure with what's going on and nervous, everyone wants to be with me and my husband is home a lot a lot a lot

and it's all different and different is hard

and all I can do is try but I am trying

and it's super disheartening when it seems like literally no one else is. I know other people are - I'm just having a hard time seeing it right now. 

Comments

[KC]

If it's any consolation, there are some concrete someone-else-trying numbers in:
1. the number of masks made and donated
2. non-pro community artwork (teddy bears in windows! rainbows in windows!) (I don't think this is a "thing" outside of big cities, but it is a thing in some places!) (I'm half a continent away from my parents, but people have been putting encouraging art-rocks in my parents' planter boxes; about one per week; with the first one, they emailed me saying "I assume you know something about this" - since sometimes I do get friends of mine who are local to them to do things that one has to be local to do - but I was really just plain glowing that nope, I have *nothing* to do with it, no one who has any obligation has anything to do with it; that is just community love)
3. professional works of art being presented to the bored and restless via the internet - wonderful people giving daily art lessons or sing-a-longs or story-times to kids - institutions figuring out how to safely do things and send all that out to the "masses"
4. universities and research institutions doubling down on trying to solve both the virus stuff (vaccines, treatments) and the related stuff (getting ventilators and PPE to where it needs to be; figuring out suggested best-practices based on scientific research).
5. people who have volunteered to do grocery pickup or TP hunts or prescription drop-offs or whatever for people who should stay at home due to age or immune things; neighbors who text to say they're going to the grocery store, do you want any fresh produce or milk; people who send letters or cards or children's art to random individuals in nursing homes to tell them someone cares out here.
6. and then all the medical professionals, etc, who have been working and working and working.

And then there's all those out there who have had screaming children or whiny people in their houses and who have *yet somehow avoided* slipping arsenic into the supper casserole. There are big and small victories. Kind of a lot of them. And I'm really, really glad I made this list because I was also feeling like the people who don't care were "winning" and... maybe they aren't.

Thank you for writing. And thank you for keeping on trying. (and thank you for that 94 pages, whether or not it ever sees the light of day.)

[Elizabeth]

I wish I had words of comfort. I do have words of respect. It’s hard, and you are doing great. I can share a post with you that I enjoyed, and hope you like it too. https://cupofjo.com/2020/05/ways-to-help-during-quarantine/

[Servetus]

When so little is asked (stay home if you can, if not wear a mask, stay six feet away) it's hard for me to understand why people who can wouldn't do that tiny little bit. To some extent the aggressively non-compliant are being magnified (and thus having their influence expanded) by the media -- 80 percent of people support the current measures in our state -- but the casual non-compliance is surely more significant.