Flux, Pickup, Start Anew

Is this upheaval?

I think my experience with this social distancing period has been awkwardly colored by the fact that for the most part, we are going about as normal. My husband is working from home, which is new. I’m going to work in a mostly empty building. We don’t eat out as much. Despite the changes in hours, for us, it’s all still deceptively normal.

The largest difference is the ever-looming presence of potential disaster. And the anxiety, fear, and uncertainty is a shadow over these mostly normal-seeming lives.

Yes, we stand six feet apart in the grocery store. But there’s this frightening sense that we are all just holding our breath as the news reports more cases, and we see more people fall ill. As we left the grocery yesterday, I had to wonder, is this how people feel during war? That you go to pick up your gallon of milk and eggs, with the knowledge that out of nowhere everything may soon collapse around you?

There are all the other effects that add to the foreboding. The fact that my feed is taken up by people laid off, furloughed, and lost hours. Our friends and family are scrambling to figure out how they will survive in all this. The fact that our economy is in perpetual downfall in ways not just to do with the stock market.

Uncertainty littered with the very real consequences for people around us.

I wonder where we will be when the smoke clears, whether that is two months or a year from now.

I’m reminded of caterpillars, who when they cocoon themselves, turn into goo, coming apart from what they were to become what they need to be. This is a time of change, we are all in flux. And it will take a lot of energy and pain to transform.

Even though I’m immuno compromised, I’m more worried about the people around me. Their lives, their health, their jobs. But I feel incapable of escaping or moving from this routine, and I have to wonder if I’m becoming goo without a shell. I’m wondering if I’ll be able to cobble together wings from the puddle on the floor if this goes on too long.

At least I have the comfort of being motivated by spite. I think that’s what will keep me going, long after the N95 masks come off.

See you on the flip side amigxs.

-La Queta

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