Stay at Home and COVID-19

Unprecidented. That is the word that we keep hearing over and over again.  As we are in unprecidented and historic times at the moment, I thought I should probably post some of the realities of "today".

Sometime in January (or was it November? December? Who can remember...) we began hearing about a new virus that was sweeping through Wuhan, China. Coronavirus. Then it started to hit some cruise ships and then Italy, pretty signaficantly. I'm not an alarmist, but I wondered what would come of this.  Japan went on lock-down to help reduce the spread and get ahead of it. My nephew, Trevor, and his family are there so we were keeping somewhat up-to-date on how things were going there.

In early March we started hearing things like, "We have to social distance and flatten the curve." Places like China and Italy were having such high rates of Coronavirus (also called COVID-19 now) that hospitals were being overrun and having to turn away critically ill patients. This virus is no joke and some people land in the hospital for weeks needing to be on ventilators. When ventilators run out, hospitals can only do so much. Measures were needed to help ensure US hospitals were not over-burdened with critically ill patients so one-by-one, states started issuing Stay and Home orders. North Carolina's was issued on March 14 and school buildings were closed beginning on March 16. Katey was in Indiana and Taylor University closed on March 17. Mike picked her up and she remained home to do school virtually for the rest of the semester.

Thankfully, Mike and I are both able to work from home and continue to be paid.  But it has been a strange month.

Being on lockdown/quarantine/stay-at-home (whatever you want to call it) does bizarre things to your brain. First of all, humans are social beings - even the most introverted of us. Being told to stay away from anyone who isn't your immediate family takes a toll on your emotional well-being. Secondly, you start to worry about things like food and toilet paper and COVID-19 germs floating through the air. And finally, you don't even remember, or care, what day it is!

When this started I found myself thinking things like, "If Seth eats another bowl of cereal I'm going to lose my mind. We are going to run out of milk and cereal and then what will we do?!" Logically the answer is that we will go to the store and get more. But we are also being advised to not leave the house unless absolutley necessary. And to wear masks. And to not touch your face. And maybe to wipe down all the things you buy from the store - or maybe not. So there is worry.

Toilet paper has been somewhat hard to come by. Partly, at first, from people buying it up to stockpile, but partly from fewer businesses being open and more people working from home, so people legitimately needing more at their houses. Meats have also been a little hit or miss around us. Some of the processing plants have been hit with the virus and had to close so there is less meat to be had.

We, our immediate family, have it good. We have not lost income, we have food in the house, we have reliable internet and electronic devices, we haven't been sick. And still, this is hard. We are in our 7th week of Stay at Home orders and we are restless. We are tired. We are lonely. We have enjoyed our schedule slowing down, but we miss the activity, the fun, the people. And some days our brains are like mush, for no apparent reason at all. Work is difficult. School is difficult. Sleep is strange. Motivation is lacking. Things take twice as long to accomplish.We read that is due to our natural "fight or flight" mode kicking in. If I weren't in the midst of experiencing it I don't think I would believe it, but it is true. And I cannot imagine what folks are feeling if they are experiencing stressors that our family isn't.

We are hoping that measures will be eased in another couple of weeks. No one is quite sure what life will look like in the coming days, weeks, months or even years. We hear that experts believe there may be a second wave of the virus in the fall. School leaders are making plans now to be prepared in case buildings are shuttered and we have to move to online learning again. We are wondering if we will be able to get together with family at the holidays or not, and even if we will be able to travel this summer. It may be a strange new world we are walking into...whenever we are allowed to walk into it again.