I vacillate between ‘I want to throw myself through a wall. GET OUT OF MY WAY.’ to ‘Wow, golly gee, what a beautiful life I have, I am so grateful to be alive.’
On Thursday, March 12th, around 2:43 p.m., a nurse threw a face mask at me after fearing I might have COVID-19, and she snapped a face mask and gloves and other garb on herself immediately. She was angry.
What a weird time this is, eh? Weird is the wrong word. An insufficient word. This is insane, confusing, frightening, frustrating, anxiety-inducing, apocalyptic, challenging and…perhaps a time of personal mental exploration and growth… yes?
I write when I don’t know what else to do and want to process things. The page is my therapist.
I know I don’t even need to say it, but the coronavirus, COVID-19, that is, has seemingly infiltrated every aspect of our lives. I’m sick of hearing about it, and I’m sure we all are, but we also all can’t seem to quit watching the news and looking up new stats and cases, number of deaths, which new places have been shut down, etc. We can’t stop looking at social media posts about it and potentially yelling about said posts and potentially commenting on said post or posting our own words in the media to make us feel some semblance of control or contribution. (Not that it’s bad to do so. Here I am posting a whole novel.)
In Nashville, Tenn. where I reside, I and many of us thought the mad tornados that slammed through on March 3rd, destroying massive sections of the city, would be the event we’d look back on in 2020 and think “wow, what a crazy and upsetting time.” We were wrong.
On a personal level, in the past month, my maternal grandmother passed away, my six-year-old nephew severely broke his leg and I was in the hospital right after it happened as he screamed and cried and didn’t understand exactly why it all had to happen. On the same day my nephew broke his leg, my other grandmother fell and hit her head twice. A few days ago she fell again.
_________
Being holed up in your home has a way of rotting you away to what or who you really are. Which is usually an innately selfish and possibly irritable entity roaring about the home silently being angry that you are holed up in this minuscule place on earth, or perhaps you’re a pacing soldier vociferously declaring “I can’t believe I’m not allowed to go anywhere!” Or maybe that’s just me. I don’t like not being in control. It pains my soul.
At night recently, my husband turned to me and said in a farcically whimsical way “what are we going to do tomorrow?!” And like a mad clown staring at it’s face in a distorted mirror, we just looked at each other and began laughing hysterically because WHAT THE HECK ARE WE GOING TO DO? inside. again. alone. together.
This was originally supposed to be about how everyone is losing their mind, everyone is shaming everyone on all sides of the sides, of the sides. You’re worried about this? How dare you be worried! You’re not worried?! How dare you not socially distance yourself from me! You bought all the toilet paper?! You must be crazy! (Or maybe you just have some digestive issues.) You’re still going to your job? Blasphemy! You’ll contaminate others! You won’t go to work because you’re afraid? You lazy scaredy cat!
So I was going to talk about that and try to convince everyone to be kind to each other and have empathy and compassion and understanding. And to listen. But that’s not really exactly what this will be because I’m not sure that’s helpful (or maybe I’m tricking you into reading that). It’s more of ‘Story time with Mary-Margaret: Her experience probably not having but maybe having COVID-19 and being stuck inside her apartment for 20 years. Mary-Margaret is also very dramatic.’
But we do indeed need to have some compassion and empathy for our fellow humans on this planet. It’s a weird, confusing, upsetting, apocalyptic, mysterious time, as I’ve said. This is unchartered territory, at least for most of us. We don’t know what to think or how to act. And we feel out of control. When we humans feel out of control, we start to do some weeeeird stuff.
Venturing to the Doc to prove I’m Corona-free.
When I went to the doctor (to hopefully prove to my family, friends and employer I didn’t have the Corona) I ended up feeling more shameful and mutant-like than ever.
I called ahead of time and was told if I didn’t have a fever I could come in for the walk-in clinic. And so I took my temperature three times beforehand (after waiting the appropriate amount of time after consuming water/food). It varied a little but all supposedly below 98.7 every time.
I sat in the room that was magazine-less, that had awkward amounts of seating arranged strangely so you were forced to sit beside someone no matter how few people were there. A small children’s table sat in the middle of adult chairs, like an abandoned orphan. It was covered in crayon, ‘Matt was here,’ ‘jUlia was hu(illegible letters)’ and a myriad of other names and scribbles I don’t recall and weren’t really legible anyway.
After I made it through my time at the front desk, getting (mostly) checked in, a large man in worn-out jeans shuffled up from the waiting area and announced he had to leave and would reschedule. I don’t really recall anyone acknowledging this other than me, but I’m sure they did. I was then handed my clip board to fill out my new patient info. I ever-so-lightly dangled the clipboard between two fingers thinking the germs might appreciate my gentleness and leave me alone. I stared at the cup on the counter by the maybe-fake flowers. It had at least 57 pens jammed inside. All gray. All touching each other. I gingerly slid one out, trying not to brush against the rest and then squirted hand sanitizer from the uncomfortably large jug onto my half open hand. I nervously walked toward the sitting area hoping I could snag a seat NOT beside anyone. Found one! Simultaneously, as I lowered myself down into the lap of the chair, I noticed large bottom indentions. The seat was all warm.* cringe * This is where ‘I gotta reschedule’-washed-out-blue-jean man had been. It always makes me uncomfortable to sit in a seat where someone just was. It feels too intimate. The warmth of some strangers body still residing where you now are is…unsettling, at best. But, so too was the masked lady on the other side of the waiting area, coughing into her sickly-yellow colored mask.
I stared into nothingness for a while, contemplating walking out of the doctor’s office, because I didn’t really think I was ‘sick’ and because this seemed like an ideal place for someone with a suppressed immune system (me) to get COVID-19 from these other sick hooligans (them).
I felt like I was the only one looking around the room really thinking about the situation we were in. Everyone was looking at their phone, seemingly unaware of much anything else. But maybe they were looking around while I was looking down at my phone. We all think we’re the different ones, the more aware ones, the better ones, the more-in-tune and intelligent being.
Finally someone called the name “Mary” from a suddenly opened door, that was facing the direction of the front desk and not toward the waiting room, which seemed like an odd choice of design. First thought: I intentionally hyphenated my name on the check-in sheet, so they would call me Mary-Margaret and not just Mary. Sigh. I rounded the corner of the open door and was herded onto a scale to check my weight right behind the door. I tried to bond with the nurse by asking, “Are you going crazy yet? How’s it been?” I don’t quite recall what she said, as I was then staring at my weight in numbers, which tends to be a distraction. But we shared a bit of a laugh, but it didn’t feel like she was ready to bond. I have a problem where I like for people to like me, almost immediately.
As we made it into the room, she asked why I was there, which I thought would have been communicated to her, since I had told two others already at this facility (but it’s busy and insane there, of course). I prefaced with the fact that I didn’t have a fever, and listed a few minor symptoms. When I told her I was just trying to prove to my family and employer that I didn’t have the coronavirus (sort of said in a light-hearted way), I was quite baffled by her reaction. This was obviously the wrong thing to say. She immediately threw a face mask at me without saying anything, snapped one around her face, slid gloves on and I’m not sure what else. As a pulled the stretchy string behind my ears, I again wondered why all the masks have a sickly-yellow tinge to them. I immediately said I don’t have a fever again, and explained I was told I was allowed to come inside. She was visibly angry and didn’t seem to hear what I said and exclaimed, “Didn’t you see the signs outside the front door?! You’re not supposed to come in if you have the symptoms!” I again explained I called ahead, took my temperature three times and was given the go-ahead to come inside. She took some vital signs, but when we got to the part of taking my temperature, all hell broke lose. I did indeed have a fever. Blurgh. I explained again that I really had taken my temperature, and my thermometer must be broken. She wasn’t saying anything and was angry and moving things around. I just kept apologizing for coming in, and then she left without explanation.
(Just for info and transparency, the sign outside the door said for you to stay in your car if you were coughing, suffered from shortness of breath, sneezing, running a fever.. and maybe some other things. I did indeed at one point have all these symptoms, including sore throat, wheezing, requiring use of my inhaler, and I did have a fever early on.. and apparently still at that time, I found out. So I shouldn’t have come inside and instead had someone come see me at my car. But again, I didn’t expect anger, especially since it was unintentional).
I totally get being upset, I really do. I would be scared to be in her shoes, and I really wouldn’t want to be in her shoes. Her shoes are probably covered in germs. I’m sure she deals with people all day who do dumb things and expose others to harmful illnesses, who show a lack of awareness and care for others. I’m sure she felt personally in danger by having me in there with the potential of my having COVID-19. But I just couldn’t understand the anger and lack of empathy. I didn’t mean to come in whilst having a fever. I didn’t know I had one. I explained over and over. I felt so incredibly shameful, gross and inhuman. I lost my humanity for a time while I was thought to have had the virus (not that we know for sure I haven’t had it. More on that later). I wasn’t a patient anymore, I was something to be avoided, something that was other and needed to be disposed and taken care of. I’m sure she’s tired, overworked and sick of dealing with sick people and people who think they have the coronavirus. But it just stung to feel like… a virus. For some reason, in life, it always peeves me when people get angry at someone who accidentally did something—totally unintentional and unaware. I just don’t think it’s fair to be totally angry at an accident.
(There is a difference between an accident and willful ignorance, though. But that’s another story.)
I sat alone for an uncomfortable amount of time, not knowing what was going on.
_______
A woman donning a fully-covering face-mask and other protective garb entered the room. She reminded me of a beekeeper in suit trying not to get stung. I immediately apologized to her for having come in the facility while having a fever and again explained I didn’t know and my thermometer must have been faulty. This woman had a gentler presence and said, “It’s okay,” but then she immediately added, “I’m going to put this up your nostril.” I then noticed she carried some sort of kit with her that had an uncomfortably-long looking plastic cue-tip thing. Without explaining why this was happening and what it was for, the long plastic cue tip went up my right nostril. It was a bit painful and made me cough in the woman’s face. Then, Mr. XL Cue-tip ventured up my left nostril. This was also not-so-gentle and cough-promoting. At least she had on a ginormous face mask.
Without explanation, she vanished through the door. Alone again, I waited for a looong time, trying to set my mind right. I don’t have corona, just keep thinking that. Think positive. Visualize them telling you that you don’t have corona…… Gah, I have corona. Of course I do. Of course my lousy immune system that is allergic to everything and breaks down all the time gathered the coronavirus up and spewed it out all over my body. Maybe this is good. I can develop antibodies to it, and I will be immune. I will be super girl. How will I work though? How long do I have to quarantine myself? Maybe I don’t have it. Maybe they were wrong about my temperature. Does everyone think I’m lying about being sick? I don’t want to be sick. I don’t get sick. I’m not sick. I can’t miss work. I don’t miss work. I never call out. I must be the last man standing always and forever. Why do I never allow myself to say I’m sick? Why do I view it as a sign of weakness? Why do I view others who so easily declare themselves as “sick” to be weak and lazy? I’m envious of them. I want to feel like it’s okay to be sick and call myself sick.
This went on for a long time, as I sat on the edge of the patient table/chair thing, my feet dangling off, my ankles becoming more red and splotchy by the minute as my blood gathered at my feet. They felt tingly. Here I was having an existential crisis in the middle of East Nashville in a small, crammed doctors office that had a sheet of paper on a bulletin board that said “Your baby may smell like roses, but her diaper.. something, something.. noses.” I couldn’t see the rest as it was covered up by some other paper that talked about calling ahead to renew your prescription.
________
I can’t wait for the day that I don’t have to feel shameful for coughing while walking down the street. Dear gracious goodness cough drops almighty. It’s as if I’m a seven-eyed ginormous gremlin foaming at the mouth slinking down the street, parents yanking their kids away, dude-bro-guys holding beer bottles on their porch backing away slowly as their eye line follows my disgusting foamy coughing gremlininess on the sidewalk.
Why seven eyes? I don’t know.
When I went to Kroger a few days ago, I had an unfortunately-timed major coughing fit in the middle of the store (this was about a week before everything really started shutting down). People were literally u-turning in the aisles to escape me. One dude wildly obviously leapt away from me, his hair swooshed to the side as he dodged the potential corona-soaked cloud that was me. If we can, perhaps we should be slightly more subtle in protecting ourselves. But also. Don’t go to the store if you’re sick. *insert smiley face* Sorry.
_________
Finally, another woman with a normal face mask and gloves came in the room. She was holding a pen and a few post-it notes (in hindsight, that doesn’t seem very official). She sat down on the stool by the small table built into the corner of the wall. I remained on the edge of the patient chair. Which still put me right in front of her because the room is basically the length of the patient chair. I could see her visibly pushing against the wall to be as far away from me as possible. I get it. I didn’t want to be inside my skin now that I feared the coronavirus was slithering its way through my body. I wouldn’t want to be near me either.
She was kind though, but I also apologized to her and explained the thermometer thing, again. She asked me lots of questions about whether I’d traveled and my symptoms. We talked about where I worked, how I work with the public constantly, how mostly sick people come in right now because it’s a health and wellness place. I explained how my husband had traveled to Arizona recently for a tax conference, and he returned home wildly sick. She made a jokingly repulsed/ick sound after my mentioning the tax conference and we both laughed about it. Ohhh, haha, taxes. Boring, nerd stuff. Sigh.
I for some reason left out that I’d been getting really hot, sweaty and dizzy intermittently and fell to the floor a couple times. Again, I don’t get sick and that was probably some weird blood sugar thing, yes? I also failed to tell her that I have autoimmune issues that make me more susceptible to allergies, illnesses, sensitivities, etc. Because I am a crazy, that’s why I didn’t tell her. I told her about my asthma, shortness of breath and all that jazz though. She explained that even if they wanted to give me a test, they weren’t allowed to because I didn’t fit the criteria as a candidate to take the COVID-19 test. I would have had to have traveled to one to the majorly affected areas or would have to have proof that I’d been exposed to someone with COVID-19. She was visibly frustrated that she wouldn’t be able to test me and hadn’t been able to test many people. It obviously wasn’t her fault, as the health department only provided them with about twenty tests, she said, thereby they had to be supremely choosy about who could receive a test. I don’t actually know which facilities these twenty tests were for—if it was just this office or for multiple doctor’s offices in Middle Tennessee or what.
She listened to my breathing and said it sounded decent, so I likely just had an upper respiratory infection, but juuuuust in case, I needed to self-quarantine myself for a few days and monitor my temperature and not go to work or be around any people really at all. And I should wipe down my own kitchen after I use it, she said.
I asked how she’s been doing, and she seemed relieved at the question. She told me she’s in between full time jobs at clinics right now and will be moving back to full-time in the next month, which means she currently isn’t receiving any health insurance. *gasp* She’s working extra hours in a doctors office around sick people all the time, potentially around people with COVID-19, and she isn’t receiving health insurance. Apparently her coverage doesn’t kick in until next month. She jokingly said she’s been saying in her mind toward the patients, “If I get the corona, I’m coming to you all for money since you contaminated me!”
We laughed—laughed at the sadness and ridiculousness of our healthcare system. Sigh again. I made a sort of joke about how she should call me if she gets the coronavirus and we’ll start a Go Fund Me page for her healthcare bills. It was a moment of connection and camaraderie, and it was nice.
She told me to walk out of the office in my face mask, just to protect everyone.
As I was walking out, I came face to face again (or eyes to eyes since we had face masks on) with the gal who became intensely irritated with me earlier. Her face now made me a bit angry and resentful, which made me feel bad. I hate when people’s faces make me angry. I gave her a thumbs up as I was passing by. I’m not sure how she took it, but my crazed mind thought it would communicate to her that I didn’t have corona, as in “Thumbs up, I’m good. So, you are too! Okay?!”
We’re all experiencing something new and different, mysterious and unsettling.
We’re afraid of each other but need each other more than ever. We don’t want to talk about this stuff. But we want to talk about it all the time, and we need to talk about it. But we also want and need some sense of normalcy.
It’s weird, it’s eerie and we don’t know what to make of it all. And we’re getting mixed messages, and it’s hard to know where to move and not move and which way is forward or if there is a way forward. We want some sense of control, and I don’t think we really know what that means right now. So we’ve gone out and bought all the crap we can to prepare for a full on apocalypse.
I don’t think many of us thought we’d ever really be experiencing a global pandemic. But here we are.
Because this is such an insane time, humans can get pretty stinking confused and weird and unpredictable in a time of crisis. You know when you leave your dog, a dog, any dog home alone sometimes, and you return home to everything torn to shreds, curtains and blinds ripped down and tattered to bits, everything is strewn about, demolished and dismantled. Well, we are the panicked dog tearing everything apart. We’re not sure when you’re coming home, Captain Normal Life. We’re not sure what’s happening and when everything is going to be back to the way it used to be—back to comfortable and familiar.
Apocalypse… now?
Recently, my husband and I were on our usual walk in East Nashville near our home, and while looking around he stated, “It literally looks like we’re in the middle of an apocalypse.” And it does. Businesses all along the road are smashed and flattened, debris piles everywhere and strewn about, broken windows, jagged and ripped metal poles and metal sheets crumpled like paper, tumbled bricks and concrete blocks like legos smashed with a sledge-hammer or perhaps an angry three-year-old, an abandoned car thrown against a wall with shattered glass, bruised and crushed in from random flying massive debris, insulation dangling about, walls and windows boarded up, messily spray painted addresses on the side of partially standing buildings so people still know what place it used to be. Whole buildings and areas are just leveled… like that same giant three year old came through and wiped clear away colorful building blocks and Lincoln Log structures out of sheer spite and frustration. Do they still make Lincoln Logs? Maybe you all have no idea what reference this is. Anyway, it looks like a blasted war zone.
The tornado brought Nashville together. It showed us that we are all the same and we all need each other. When you are reduced down to only yourself, no shelter, only the clothes you fell asleep in, no car, then you see that we are all just people. When we are shaved down to the most raw and necessary parts of what it means to be human, then we can have the most compassion and understanding for others. That’s when we realize we are all in this together.
I think we innately know all of these things, though, even if buried deep within, behind the specific clothes we wear, the job we have and the political party to which we subscribe.
The coronavirus, though it’s making us crazy, is also forcing us to realize that no one is immune to something of this caliber. It does not discriminate between socioeconomic status, race, gender, size of your house or whether you have a Tesla or a 1984 Toyota Corolla.
We have all been brought to the same level, even though we really are always on the same level. But society has deemed a hierarchy of worthiness and importance. Sometimes it takes a pandemic to shake our humanity to the surface.
_______
We aren’t all having the exact same experience though. Some of us aren’t able to work from home. Some of us don’t have paid sick leave, some of us do, some of us are hourly workers and if we can’t go into work, we’re in a majorly tight spot. We don’t know whether to go into work or stay home and stay safe. Some of us need childcare. Some of us will now be spending the next four or more weeks at home with our children who are normally in school (Good luck and Godspeed). Some of us are geographically stuck somewhere because we aren’t allowed to travel home. Some of us are at home with our spouse who we usually don’t spend so much time with. Some of us live alone and have no one to be with. Many of us are experiencing a lack of social connection because we aren’t allowed to gather together. Some of us are still gathering in places because…well, maybe because we want community and normalcy and… maybe I’m not quite sure why. Some people aren’t worried about it at all. Some people in Italy weren’t worried about it. 368 people died in one day in Italy from COVID-19. Some people think America is immune to pandemics like this. Some people are living in a hut made solely out of toilet paper they’ve been hoarding since December. Some of us introverts are excited about all kinds of time away from people. Some of us are excited to catch up on some reading or binge watching Gilmore Girls or challenging ourselves to watch all the Lord of the Rings movies in a row. Some of us are sick. Some of us know we have COVID-19. Some of us don’t know because the doctors don’t have enough tests so we are living in limbo, avoiding all contact with the outside world. Some of us are doctors and nurses and we are working like mad around the clock. Some of us are cashiers, bank tellers and gas station attendants, and we’re probably scared of you as the customer, but we’re showing up so you can get what you need to survive this time. Some of us work in grocery stores and are doing everything to make sure you have what you need but the madness and lack of inventory is out of our control (please be kind to these people).
________
There’s a board game called Pandemic that I’ve attempted to play multiple times with friends in the past, but I always lose concentration/ability to care about the game. I generally lose interest in things when I feel they’re not relatable or real or if feel like whatever thing I’m participating in isn’t benefitting me or moving me forward in life. I’m certainly not saying it’s a good thing at all, it’s just what I feel. I also don’t like sitting still which is likely why board games in general are tough for me, and I don’t generally seek them out. I think it also shows my disdain for rules that feel inconsequential, unnecessary and generally hinder my success and enjoyment of whatever it may be. It also reveals I probably need to work on my focusing skills. Maybe now I’d feel like the game, Pandemic, was more relatable and informative. But I don’t really want to pretend I’m in a pandemic when I’m already experiencing a pandemic. I shall play Jenga instead or maybe Sorry, but probably not Twister, since, you know, there were tornados here.
________
Hello, I’m angry.
I was supposed to write something else at this point that was poetic and inspiring and happy, but instead I just became absolutely INFURIATED. I’m outraged and enraged! I’m just so incredibly ferociously incensed by this coronavirus. I am fuming at a virus. That’s right. I said it. I just went to pick up groceries at Kroger’s Curbside pickup. I arrived home and started realizing all the door handles I touched to get in the building, the walls and bags and products and everything. Who had touched them and what had they touched? All these things could have the virus on it. My bag of potatoes could, my cabbage, Larabar and avocado and almonds. Apparently the virus can last nine to 12 hours on surfaces (quoted from my nurse). I could be touching and spreading it everywhere. Likely I’m not, hopefully I’m not, but I could be. All it takes is one little wrong encounter with a rude and clingy virus. That started to really piss me off. Sorry, Mom. I know you don’t like when I say that p-word.
It’s okay to be upset, it’s okay to be overwhelmed. Scream, cry, throw something. Get it out, throw it out there, write about it, sing about it, talk to someone about it. I’m not suggesting we sit and revel and wallow in it forever. But acknowledge it. Acknowledge the pain and the destruction and the loss and the change.
I don’t like being afraid to go places, and don’t like getting in trouble for going places. I don’t like that some of my family is extra afraid of me getting the virus because I have a messed up, suppressed immune system. I don’t like feeling like a weak one. I don’t like feeling out of control, at all. I’m tired of scaring people when I cough. I’m so tired of holding my cough in while I’m walking down the street. I’m tired of not being able/allowed to go to work. I’m just tired, I’m just tired.
We are all dealing with this. We are all being put under the same restrictions, and it’s infuriating and upsetting. Maybe it’s really not that bad. Maybe? In the early 1900’s and even far later, men were asked and often essentially forced to go to war. Many have noted that being forced to stay inside our homes is hardly comparable to being asked to go to war. That is certainly beyond true. But we can still get frustrated. It just feels so out of our control. I’m not mad at anyone. I’m just ticked off at the dang virus.
An exorbitant amount of people are without a job right now or are working far less hours or aren’t making any tips. If you’re a small business owner or any business owner really, and very few customers are coming in, it’s beyond difficult to pay your employees and keep the doors open. It’s such a burden for them to bear. To keep the doors open so everyone keeps getting paid or close the doors to protect the employees and the public? I’m currently grappling with some of the above issues myself. And it’s frightening, confusing and ambiguous.
Someone I know is now working full-time at home, attempting to homeschool her child and she’s pregnant and will somehow have to find time to take care of herself. Another friend is a full time nurse who also happens to be far into her pregnancy. What a combination of stresses to manage amongst all this madness.
Social distancing, aka the introverts dream.
There are, of course, people who are in critical condition because of this virus. At the moment I’m writing this, there have been close to 7,500 deaths. I think it’s difficult to grasp what numbers mean anymore after constantly seeing the number of cases and deaths. And because we’re incessantly bombarded with statistics of wars, illnesses, deaths from a myriad of sources. Sometimes it just feels like numbers, not people. But each one is a person who was thinking and breathing just before death. They had parents and siblings and favorite kinds of food and they had weird habits and pet peeves and maybe they loved to eat Kix cereal or they were allergic to peanuts. Perhaps they were someone’s grandmother, father, brother, mother, wife, best friend, niece, nephew, coworker, employee. I think some of us look at the numbers and think, “Well, that’s not that many overall when you think about the whole world.” And I think that’s how our minds have been trained to think, accidentally perhaps, over time, ingesting the news, and watching movies and tv shoes and playing video games that normalize death and destruction. (Please, please know this is not me saying we shouldn’t be watching and playing such things. I think it’s just important to be aware.)
I think it’s difficult to grasp the situation unless it directly affects you in an obvious way, perhaps if you get COVID-19 or someone you know contracts it. We may otherwise now and forever believe that we never needed to worry about this situation. But that’s not everyone’s experience. There are many people suffering from this in various capacities. I think we sometimes forget that our experience is not everyone’s experience. We live in our heads, we are constantly only with ourselves.
Perhaps making the choice not to go somewhere means you won’t spread the germs to that one person, and they won’t spread it to that other one person, and they won’t spread it to that other one person that they would have spread it to and that one person has multiple sclerosis or heart disease or diabetes or cancer. And now, now, they will be spared because you decided to take precaution, just in case, and take one for the team and stay home.
For a time, I actually doubted the legitimacy of how much we should be worried and how much it really mattered for me to stay home and for others to correctly practice “social distancing.” After reading that 368 people died in one day in Italy from this virus, it fully clicked.
Maybe it’s an odd thing to do, but I brought to mind how I felt when people in my life either passed away or where wildly ill or in excruciating pain and what it felt like for me to watch that unfold. I watched my nephew scream in agony and confusion when his bone snapped in half and he had a wound open to his bone. I thought of the day I showed up to work crying, unable to hold it together because I just heard my Mom lost over half her blood and I didn’t know what was going on. I thought of my Granny passing away last month and what it was like to slowly watch her body shut down over multiple weeks.
There are people who are personally experiencing their body shut down, and there are others watching their husband, brother, father, mother pass away because of the virus. You might be just fine if you get COVID-19, but someone else might not. Maybe you and I will never know if we were an asymptomatic carrier of the virus, and by venturing out and about we spread it to someone who wasn’t able to fight the virus as we were. And then they passed away.
Part of me, the angry part of me that made an appearance yesterday that got ticked off at a virus, wants to say “to hell with it all!” I will go do whatever I want, wherever I want and touch whatever I want. “Lick my face, Coronavirus!” But that’s not productive.
How many deaths have to occur for everyone to take it seriously? How many virus cases need to be documented? I think, once we actually have a multitude of COVID-19 test kits, we’ll more fully be able to see realistic numbers of how many cases are lurking about out there. Again, I could have had COVID-19 this whole time. They wanted to test me, but they couldn’t because I didn’t meet the very specific requirements. (I really don’t think I did, it’s just frustrating not to be able to prove it. )
I think the sooner we fully practice social distancing and quarantining ourselves, the sooner we can mostly nip this in the bud. Then we can get back to normal.
I didn’t plan on inserting my opinion too much in here, but alas, somehow it seeped in.
What now?
Yesterday, for some reason I became extra emotional, I would cry for seemingly no apparent reason. Mostly I was angry. I have the unfortunate trait of tearing up no matter what extreme emotion occurs. Unbounded happiness? Crying my eyes out. Feeling totally connected to the universe? Waterfalls of joy out my eyeballs. Infuriated beyond all measure? Tears of wrath streaming down my fiery face.
After I let that out yesterday, I’m trying to get back to thinking more optimistically, or at least not bleakly. I’m trying to focus on how I have more time to write now. Yes, writing! Also, writing about this truly has helped my mentality. Maybe no one will ever read this, but that’s okay. I did this for me. You should write too!
This has been an emotional time for everyone for obvious reasons and for reasons we don’t always know or see in other people. I have to remind myself of that when I feel a twinge of disdain at how the nurse reacted angrily and unempathetically toward me when I just thought I was doing the right thing (can you still feel me trying to defend myself?). But she didn’t really know that, and who knows what all she’s been dealing with. Unfathomable, I’m sure.
Behind our screens, we sometimes struggle to carefully communicate what we think and feel, why we feel it and how we feel about what someone else said or did. I know it’s common knowledge that when speaking or commenting within social media, we tend to be much more rude, angry, mean and have a lack compassion or empathy. It’s easier to yell about things when there isn’t a human face staring directly at you. Or when someone isn’t there to punch you in the face.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t speak your mind. Please do. Again, here I am posting a whole novel. I think social media can bring about grand and great change for good. It can urge our leaders to make change and improve. And some people do need a kick in the pants to change what they’re doing and how they’re reacting.
________
Some of you all likely think I’m overreacting to this whole coronavirus thing, and that’s fine. I live in the middle of Nashville, in a tightly packed area, where the majority of COVID-19 cases have been in Tennessee (at least of those documented, that is). So I might be having a different experience than you.
Someone (who I unfortunately don’t recall) said recently, “We may never know if we overreacted, but we will definitely know if we underreacted.” Perhaps it’s best not to take a chance. I’m sure the people of Italy didn’t expect their situation to get nearly as dire as it has. And now, at the moment of writing this, almost 2,500 people have died from COVID-19 in Italy.
We’re all experiencing a difficult, emotional, confusing, upside down and floopy time. We all need to cut each other slack, cut ourselves some slack and show some compassion and empathy for everyone (again, including ourselves). We all might need therapy after this. But maybe therapy will just mean spending time in community and connecting with others. Because that’s what we’re wired to do.
For now, I’m going to torture my husband with my unicorn hand puppet, Larry the Unicorn, because other than some work, I have nowhere to go and nothing to do. I’m going to write daily. I’m going to reach out to my family and friends (mostly, hopefully, I’ll try. I promise. I’m terrible at promptly texting and answering the phone). I’m going to cook and bake new and weird concoctions #stressbakethedayaway. I’m going to randomly drop to the floor and (sort of) do pushups and burpees and run around my apartment like a frightened animal. I’m going to stare out the window aimlessly and wonder what everyone is doing out there. I’m going to wave and squeal at dogs that walk by my balcony. Maybe I’ll do some more oil painting. I’ll probably cut my hair and dye my hair a different color just because I’m bored. What are you going to do?
This could be a time of reflection. Hmmmm… what have I always wanted to do with my life? Now I have some extra time to ponder and perhaps act on it. I shall do that! When normal life seems to come to a halt, when times of difficulty, change and suffering enter, you rethink how you’re going about your life, who you have in your life, who you need to bring back into your life and what or who you need to remove from your life because they’re not adding positive value. You think about the things you never said, and shouldn’t have said and the things you meant to do. It makes us think about our time on earth and how we’re contributing and not. I wrote about this last month somewhat after my grandmother passed away.
This whole blip of writing was supposed to be about something different and supposed to be short. Whoops. I guess, I just want to share experiences. I like to hear about others’ experience. It makes me feel connected, it makes me feel like everything’s going to be okay. Their experiences, your experiences often make me laugh and feel a bond because it’s a shared human experience. Sometimes all you can do is laugh.
I was told that you can hold a scream for a maximum of about 20 seconds. You also should be washing your hands for approximately 20 seconds to fight coronavirus. In order to ensure you wash your hands the proper amount of time and if you’re stressed out, you know what to do.