Turning Into the Year
One year ago, we knew about the coronavirus, but it wasn’t impacting day to day life in the US. My journal changed over slowly, then all at once.
I mentioned a doctor’s appointment at the end of February, but I didn’t note that I asked her if she thought the virus would spread in the US. I remember she looked at me strangely and said, “It’s not ‘if,’ it’s ‘when’.” I went home and told Josh that maybe we should be worried.
I mentioned a reproductive rights rally on March 4th outside the Capitol, but I don’t mention how I decided not to go down for it because there were grumbles that we shouldn’t gather in crowds.
I mentioned coffee on the 5th with a friend, and I know we spent most of the time talking about the virus.
On the 6th, we went to a school play, and I cringed when I heard people cough in the audience. But I didn’t mention that in my journal. On the 8th, we sat outside eating water ice, and a man walked behind me, coughing. I leaned forward and away, as if that would protect me.
The first mention of the virus is on the 11th. I entered a medical building, and there was a guard at the door. They announced a two-week school closure on the 12th, which is still in effect a year later. The grocery shelves were strangely empty on the 13th. The kids went to my parents’ house for the final time on the 14th. We made an isolation plan on the 15th. It’s a wall of updates, day after day after day.
It is surreal how COVID-19 went from background noise to central thought, and then, at some point, became a split in attention. My mind is always processing the pandemic; it’s impossible not to think about it when you need to navigate it. But my mind is also not processing the pandemic. Most of my daily journal notes are about other things; non-pandemic things. It is the unspoken companion to everything else I do, but it is no longer the only thing we talk about.
I don’t know how I feel about that.
All I know is that we’re turning into the year’s end of the pandemic. We’ll mark it here on the 12th with the closure of school; that was when things changed. And then a second year will begin.
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Our schools (and work) closed on March 17 – Happy St. Patrick’s Day! It was a Tuesday and I made the mistake of volunteering to go in that week. My coworkers each got a paid week off. I did not, because they came up with a “plan” and called everyone back to work after week 2. (Week 3 was supposed to be my week off.) Then they got Covid and got 2 more quarantine weeks off (paid). Thus far, I have received an extra personal day, 5 hours paid leave when I found out we would get paid leave for vaccine side-effects, and I’m fighting for that other day I took off after the 1st vaccine. Obviously, my world is wrapped up in paid time off work that doesn’t use my vacation/personal/holiday/sick time. 🙂 Sigh…irritation about that keeps me from getting depressed about all the things I’m missing out on, I guess.
The pandemic has sort of faded into very loud background noise. I feel like I will still want to wear a mask when this is all over, because people are absolutely unhygienic. Then again, I feel like this will never be over. I think I need a nap.
March 13 is what I think of as the pandemversary – Friday the 13th was the first day I kept my kids home from school. That weekend the school board decided to close for “two weeks” and the rest is history.
I have a “one year later” post in the works that I’m planning to post later next week — but you got me thinking about what I started noticing and when, and I wound up writing a blog post of my own about it too!
https://theroadlesstravelledlb.blogspot.com/2021/03/little-did-we-know.html
Here in California I remember vividly going to the hospital for a scheduled surgery of my “other mother” (lifelong best friend’s mom who has adopted me since my mom died far too young). That was in February and I was thinking at the time “Thank God it’s now, soon we won’t be able to come to the hospitals,” because I’d been following the news from overseas and I saw the writing on the walls. The first week of March we were getting nervous, niece’ bridal shower was that weekend and the Bay Area was already in lockdown. The shower had about half the expected attendance and was the last time we were together (I live maybe 3 miles away). By 2 days after the shower we were lockdown, and now it’s a year later and we are still very much in lockdown, exacerbated because my husband is high risk and has me on higher lockdown than the state does!
Mid February I had a conversation with two other moms at school pick up that I can’t get out of my head. Mom 1: “Do we need to be worried about this coronavirus?” Mom 2: “I think we need to be more concerned about influenza, honestly.” I said nothing but mentally agreed.
March 11 my daughter dislocated her elbow (we didn’t know it immediately) and the morning of March 12 I waited on hold for what felt like forever and finally got “the last non virus appointment” with her pediatrician. The office was ghostly and surreal. That also ended up being her last day of kindergarten.
Before her appointment I picked up groceries and the shelves were bare, people were hoarding, and the drive up pick up orders were all hours behind because the demand was suddenly so high.
The next day we began our 3 week school closure and are still schooling at home today. It’s so crazy to remember all of those very specific details but they feel big a year later.
I had a dr appt March 3 and was mildly uneasy when the dr (new to me) shook my hand. We went to Target that weekend and disinfectant wipes were out of stock. There was a parent potluck meeting scheduled the following week for March 12. First it was changed to only packaged food then no food then cancelled altogether. I had to drive a couple hours to the Bay Area for a meeting on March 11. About 10 of us in a conf room, no one shook hands, we were all kind of smiling, feeling a little silly and agreeing we wouldn’t. Later that day I heard about Tom Hanks having covid and the NBA canceling the rest of the season. It seemed surreal.
Now I frequently talk about cases, numbers, without actually saying covid. Everyone knows what you are talking about. It’s always there.