Chapter 8

2020 COVID-19 – April 2

It’s been surreal, disorienting and exhausting to watch all of this progress. What was normal a few weeks ago is gone, slow and sticky like tar, somehow the unthinkable things are becoming commonplace. Daily routines are slipping back into place in the confines we are given.
Surely in a few years we are going to look back at all of this and laugh and laugh and laugh. Just kidding, this probably isn’t going to be funny ever. It feels like a rip in the stitching of our life fabric that we should have seen coming. Maybe we weren’t paying enough attention. We pay too much attention and somehow not enough. That could be the new slogan for social media.

Social Media: observe much absorb little

Ironically I had a Facebook memory pop up where I thought March wasn’t going well….in 2011. Sort of hard to wonder what could possibly have been that wrong then? Perhaps I burned some waffles? Bed bugs were a city wide concern? I couldn’t get concert tickets to go see Air Supply?

So far 2020 is like we are collectively getting a tattoo that says NO RAGRETS

I had the immense pleasure and am extraordinarily privileged enough to have spent extended time with family over the holidays. On New Years’ morning, we sat around and individually said the one word we wanted 2020 to encompass. Mine was TIME. I wanted more of it, to be more aware of it and how little we truly have on this journey.

To all the scientists, epidemiologists, researchers, medical professionals, academics and everyone that saw something like this coming and offered us time to prepare. To everyone trying to warn early and tell us we should take action, and change the way we interact with each other and with our world. You were right and we were wrong.

I’m sorry.

To everyone including a far more naively incorrect version of myself from a month ago who thought this might not be too big of a deal. And to all the people who still think this is an overreaction and unnecessary experience. I truly hope that you or anyone you love will not get sick. You were wrong and they were right.

But blame is about as effective as two soft side pieces of Velcro trying to connect. Please, can we all just agree right now to take early action on the next thing that threatens us? (and there are already many)

Also heads up for that strain of antibiotic, disinfectant, hand-sanitizer resistant bacteria that’s going to be immune to all of these products that are being used right now. Because that one is gonna be a doozy.

So the next time that person who is smarter than me tells me to jump, I’m going to ask how high and in what direction. Humans are not made for extended social distancing. That’s coming from and introvert who had childhood dreams of living in a forest alone under a canopy of leaves. The next time something gross and infectious comes along, before we all have to collectively hunker down and stay away from each other in order not to infect huge sections of the population with pure proximity, let’s make sure that we do it early.

Like, really early.

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Rating: it is no secret that I secretly love the band Air Supply. If only their sweet melodic 80’s tunes were a cure for all infectious diseases.
23/100: for their songs disease curing properties.
99/100: for karaoke potential