Quarantine

noun

a strict isolation imposed to prevent the spread of disease.

Just some thoughts as we toil through the current state of events…

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Admittedly, hearing murmurs of keeping yourself contained in one place for any amount of time can be mentally stressful. As much as most of our society (Gen X’ers and Millennials alike) will almost gleefully proclaim “Stay home and away from people?! I’ve been doing THAT already!”, we are social beings after all and will come out from under of respective rocks and socialize with people in our social circle or at the very least at work. Add in the menial tasks of day to day life (visits to the grocery store, coffee shop, gas station, etc) and we’ve filled in our quota for socializing. 

Given the fact that this health crisis is so easily transmitted and that it can affect those who have underlying health conditions, those who have respiratory issues (like asthma) and the elderly it has a lot of people understandably shook. Oh yeah…and let’s also add the fact that it can be deadly. It’s understood that the flu has been putting up some serious numbers for years (it’s one of the major serial killers with NO warrants) but we weren’t mentally ready for this as a whole. That can be witnessed by the hordes of people stockpiling everything from the stores and by those frantically refreshing and sharing almost everything about this illness from morning until night. Real talk: Let’s just face it-hardly no one has quarantined themselves from work and social activities when they’ve suffered from just “ a bad cold” and no one has really experienced being made to stay home because they had the flu for two weeks or more. You might as well consider yourself out of a job if you try and ask. The reasons why are another post for another time….

Besides money and love, these days social media makes the world go ‘round…and news of this new health crisis spread like wildfire and quickly after a slow start that barely got any mentions. While people were stunned and saddened over the news of the helicopter crash that claimed the lives of a beloved sports figure, his daughter and the other passengers, the news was starting to break about the Coronavirus. That was back in February, guys. February. Once that hoopla died down collectively we’ve had something else to deal with that actually affects all of us before we had a chance to wipe the sweat from our brow. Even when it comes down to how our day to day lives are carried on. Now let’s add on the conspiracy theories, fear-mongers (political zealots and religious alike), add a dash of the apathetic individuals young and old and here we are. 

I’ll admit that at first I personally took the news of this with a shrug. We’ve heard about the past health scares from previous years and made it out okay and relatively unaffected. This poses to be a different beast to the point where the country is basically shut down. As for those in my household, we’ve taken precautions and we’re actually fortunate enough to be able to self-quarantine (regardless of if we’re actually sick or not) and it does not severely alter our lives. That being said: we’re not being all willy-nilly and going out in the world just because. There are enough entitled and selfish folks doing just that and risking the lives of everyone else. Sometimes it makes me wonder why people don’t care about something until it happens to them or someone they care about. I get I live in America: the Land of the Free and Home of the brave but-damn- our ancestors didn’t die for this level of stupidity and selfishness. 

Some of the pros to come out of this for us is that it’s opened up a lot of our schedule for the next few weeks. Before a week ago we were pretty booked solid with events and special occasions that were coming up including a visit from family members from out of state. Once this happened? It was like watching a line of dominoes slowly get knocked down. With this unfounded schedule change, we’re actually able to get to those long pushed back tasks and projects around the house that we’ve been needing to do. It happens to all of us: those things that you want/need to do but can’t because of that major distraction called “life”. You’re currently reading one of the things I’ve been meaning to finally get off the ground right now. I can find some joy in that at least instead of kicking myself and saying “I’ll get to it soon” because my physical and mental energy has been put elsewhere. On a global scale? With the lockdown over in China, the air pollution levels have gone down (don’t believe me? Google it!!!). No matter where you live THAT’S something to be happy about and hopefully that trend continues.

Observations and personal feelings aside, things WILL get better in time. It’s just going to take some time and a whole lot of sit still for us to get there. Some sacrifices for the greater good are sometimes necessary. With all this technology that we have at our fingertips things don’t even have to be that bad. Between TV, the internet, streaming services, etc you can keep yourself occupied or even educate yourselves on something new. Hell….even use the old standby: pick up a book! I’ve got an actual stack of books I’ve had all intentions of getting to and now I have the time to do it. Technology be damned! 

And, now, some rules of thumb:

Keep abreast of what’s going on with what’s going on but don’t let your lives be consumed by it. There’s a good amount of misinformation going around and that can cause people to panic which is not what we need. Limit your endless scrolling on social media because that can be an echo chamber of paranoia if you let it. Unless you’re not fortunate to where you can work from home, Stay home. You might not get sick but you can very well carry this illness to someone else who can suffer. Be smart: go by the guidelines so you can hopefully not get sick. We’ve all heard them I’m not going to reiterate them here. Be smart: unless the information comes from an actual official source (CDC, national/local governments, etc) then take it with TWO grains of salt. Misinformation can cause serious problems and we already have enough of that already. There’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We just need to make it through the rain first. 

“In the end, everything will be fine. If everything is not fine then it’s not the end.”