Covid-19…hmh. Where do I begin? I guess I’ll start in the beginning…
January 2020. My husband travels home from Seattle in his old role as an Area Manager for his company, about a week or so later I start with symptoms of what I brush off as “bad allergies” because honestly, that’s what it felt like! Except this was a little different, it progressed to my chest rather quickly. I went to the doctor and was treated for a respiratory infection. I eventually recovered in about 2 weeks. Then, my husband gets sick with the same thing, same symptoms, same recovery time. Little did we know at the time, Seattle was a hot spot, the antibiotics I was given were useless, and we both with absolute certainty had Covid-19. (That was the early days before it was rampant in the media) so we were not tested for it. We both recovered pretty uneventfully. (As did most)
Fast forward to the end of February. My husband only watches CNBC and the stock market news. At this point, Covid is headlines. They are talking about social distancing as a possibility, and canceling large events. I’m standing in my kitchen and thinking “for a freaking respiratory infection?” Is this for real? The flu kills more people every year than this thing! I mean it’s not freaking Ebola! At this point I’m convulsively eye rolling every time a report comes on about it.
March 2020. All major events are cancelled, stay at home orders are in effect, most “non-essential” businesses are closed, you can’t go to church, schools are closed, but you can go to Walmart and Home Depot because they are deemed essential, (oh and liquor stores) the mask/glove controversy begins. The stock market is in a nose dive tailspin…All for a respiratory infection!
April 2020. Quarantine is in full affect with no end in sight, unemployment is around 33 million, the economy is in the worst shape in history since the Great Depression, the mask/glove debate continues, the divide in our country grows stronger between the left and the right, there is no consistency to anything. Reports in the media, our local, state and federal governments can’t get it together, social media compounds everything and makes it worse. Conspiracy theories run amuck, people are trying to be compliant, but are thinking in the back of their minds, something isn’t right! They think of the flu numbers, and the logical part of their brain says “all of this for a respiratory infection?”
May 2020. I get furloughed to 4 hours a day. I have to cram a 50 hour work week into 4 hours a day. But hey, I still have a job (so far) Then, we get the news from my husbands job we dreaded hearing, “you have to go work in the field to get billable. All of the planned projects have been canceled due to Covid. The closest working project is in Utah! For at least a year!” Everything we built and we’re working for changed with one phone call. We’ve lived this life before, we thought we were done with it. This isn’t happening! But it was happening. I know we will get through it, we’ve done it before for 6 years. We are grateful to have a job to complain about. So many millions don’t. So tell me, what is the real tragedy here? Lives and livelihoods lost, our forever altered economy, small businesses that will never recover, our new normal? The even greater divide this has caused in our society? Families that are one paycheck away from being homeless actually becoming homeless? People will argue it was all necessary to save the “at risk” population (before you attack me, remember I have an autoimmune disease and technically am at risk) and to not overwhelm the healthcare system because of ventilator shortages, and to flatten the curve…but still, the logical reason part of my brain screams out… “all for a respiratory infection?”
The real life adventures of a Creole Gypsy 