Today marks a year of the two weeks to flatten the curve. It all seems like an awful blur of sadness, rage, loss, humor, intensity and sheer mental will.
I remember being sent home from work when Governor Wolf first issued the stay-at-home order. My reaction was like someone trying to throw a cat in a tub of water.
“You can’t make me go!” I screeched something about my Constitutional Rights. I clawed to keep the last shreds of normalcy. But, I had no choice. And, the fact that I had no choice left of my own made the claws come out further.
I stomped around and finally went home to watch The White House Coronavirus Task Force speak. I sat stunned watching and listening hard to the words and the details I was hearing behind the words. Mt science background ignited every cell in my body; they were trying to remain calm and optimistic. But, I knew how viruses worked. I knew we had 330 million people in this country. I knew … nothing was going to be normal again for a long time.
My son watched with me and asked , “What do we do now?”
“Do you want the truth?” I replied staring ahead, numb from the answer I knew.
“Yes“, he replied.
“We sit here and wait for people to die. This doesn’t end any time soon.” I said and hung my head defeated.
I then deeply inhaled and promptly began to lose my mind. I decided to look back over the year in my camera roll of my phone. Seeing the photos from February 2020 are almost too unbearable to see. A smiling photo of me in a group. COVID-19 was a rumble across the ocean at that point. I knew deep down it was on the way. But, I was still able to bury it then. But, within weeks I was trapped in the home and masks were made mandatory. I responded by continuing to lose my mind and have “craft time” with my kids. It resulted in the masks above. The one below I wore to The Post Office and got dirty looks from the guy working there.
I learned pretty quickly that writing on a medical mask with a Sharpie is a quick way to almost pass out. Also, the “of” on the pleated area needed to be bigger. I will never understand the people that were willingly compliant with the mask. I felt like a prisoner in my home and I felt like a prisoner in my body. I don’t think that makes sense to the compliant and I don’t care. The easily compliant angered me and I let them know it every chance I got.
“STOP PUTTING STAY HOME STAY SAFE ALL OVER YOUR PROFILE!!! I GET IT!!! WE ARE ON LOCKDOWN!! I COULDN’T GO ANYWHERE IF I WANTED TO!!”
They infuriated me. I don’t know why. I couldn’t scream loud enough, so I bought a bullhorn to entertain myself by yelling at neighbors through the window with it or driving to friend’s houses to see (scream) at them from afar.
Then, people I knew started to get it. Some lived, some died. Friends were blocked from seeing their parents in nursing homes and they died in there. Alone. Funerals couldn’t be attended. Other friends scraped and struggled to keep their businesses afloat. More people I knew died. One committed suicide, another relapsed and overdosed. I was losing my sense of humor along with chunks of hair. I smiled and made jokes on the outside. Inside, I was dying.
The long, dark winter began and holidays were limited to small groups. The large family gatherings I used to proudly host were dwindled down to a handful of people. I loved them all. I was happy and lucky to have them there. But, no gathering came without the sting of guilt that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t safe. But, what was safe anymore? I continued to find ways to laugh through it and had another “craft time” to make centerpiece puppets. I can distract myself with humor — my forever hiding place and I won’t notice that my extended family isn’t here or that my breath may kill my parents by being here.
Nothing we did this year was “safe”. Not really. I can work from home, but go to the store. I can not see my parents, yet my 49-year-old classmate died from it. I could wear the mask for you, but you could touch a shopping cart and then your eye. A year … on the run … from a nanoparticle. And, with violent crime, suicide and overdose rates off the charts in their rise and half million dead in the US, I don’t know if The Year of Living Safely worked. That’s probably the hardest part in it all. I sure hope it did. But, we have no way to prove a negative. So, we are left to Monday Morning quarterback one of the most trying year of all of our lives.
I can say this year has taught me a lot about myself. Much of it, I already knew. I don’t like being told what to do, but I follow rules. I fight when trapped. I laugh when I want to cry. And, again … drawing on a medical mask with a Sharpie is a quick way to a pass out.
Pretty Political 