By now we’ve all discovered who the real MVPs in our society are, have we not?
If you’re parents with school-age children at home, chances are you probably and rightly now believe that teachers all deserve to be millionaires. As do healthcare, grocery store, and restaurant workers, mail carriers, sanitation workers, and anyone else whose job we all took for granted.
And let me tell you, fellow shelter-in-placers, staying in all day with your family is a challenge when we know there’s an end in sight — that snow will melt, the school will start again. But when we’re in the great unknown? Good luck to all of us.
And even though you may be tearing your hair out trying to get your little ones to focus for a few hours (minutes) on schoolwork, it’s not much easier when the big kids come home either.
I’m not talking about the high schoolers. They may drive you up a wall, but at least they still live there.
For those empty-nesters who have grown accustomed to the college kid(s) off on their own, it’s now disconcerting that they’re forced back into their bedrooms with a load of online work ahead and uncertainty looming every day — about their coursework, their grades, their graduation, and their future.
And while a backrub and a “there, there,” may have worked a year or two ago, how can we be reassuring, when we’re not reassured ourselves?
A week and a half ago (was that all it was?) when our daughter was back at school after her spring break trip (she elected to vacation with her friends, with our blessing), the world turned upside down. She first thought she would stay in her off-campus apartment, but the decisions came first slowly, then rapidly. If you had to stay put — like two of her roommates, who are international students — you could. But dining and other services would be limited. Then, suddenly, the world shut down. She had to come home, and once the school closed the campus, there was only the uncertainty of when — or if — she would be returning at all this semester.
And as much as we love seeing her, there’s the collective depression we all have of being out of our routine, and thus, way out of our element.
So we try to work out a system, and put structure in our lives. If we’re working from home, we may (or may not) get out of our pajamas. We still reach out to coworkers, carve out a little corner in our abodes for our work space, and grin and bear it, as much as possible.
We spend time with our pets, who are no doubt surprised by 24-hour company (I keep thinking my dog is looking at us every day and wondering, “why don’t these people go to work and get out of my house? They’re messing with my routine.”), and some of us take the time to do some productive spring cleaning (this is not me).
I’ve never seen a larger concentration of food and exercise promos on my instagram feed than in the last two weeks. Are we all stress-eating? Will we come out of this pandemic looking like the humans in the movie Wall-E, with extra flesh and fewer bones?
Or will we take up those 10-pushup challenges, the yoga or three weeks to six-pack abs apps, and ascend from our weeks or monthslong isolation looking like gods and goddesses? Yeah, me neither.
And for maybe too many of us, we’re trying to function as if it’s business as usual. When I do get out of the house, I’m taking the dog on a long walk. And in that hour or two, I must say, I see plenty of others out, walking their dogs, jogging, going about their day. I see workers fixing the streets, mail carriers and delivery people. If it weren’t for the empty playgrounds, schoolyards, restaurants closed to patrons but with signs saying they will do takeout or delivery, this would be almost like any Sunday afternoon, when people retire to their homes to rest up for Monday’s rat race.
And yet, it’s not like that at all.
On Wednesday, I heard planes overhead for the first time in almost three days. I’m an Eastie resident, we hear planes so often, we don’t hear them, if you know what I mean. But the last few days has that post 9/11 feel, when the skies were silent and the collective atmosphere was one of impending doom.
All those dystopian movies are popping up again. When you’re stuck at home for an unknown time, why wouldn’t you want to entertain yourself with Outbreak, Contagion, Andromeda Strain?
As for me, I keep feeling like we’re in the before days of the movie A Quiet Place, or the pre-story of the world changing in A Handmaid’s Tale. You know, where the blowing newspapers document the world going to hell in a handbasket, while we reported on it?
However, I refuse to believe all is lost. I do believe that the worst is ahead of us, and I fervently hope that the social distancing we’ve all been begged to do flattens the curve. When we’re walking, we can still smile, nod, and then step away. We can still reach out electronically to friends and distant family. Skype, FaceTime, Zoom, and Houseparty are all great for this.
This doesn’t have to be our new normal forever. But it does have to be our new “right now.”
Be safe, be careful, be well.
