We’re all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?

How are you holding up?

Y’all doing okay?

Going crazy yet?

These are the standard greetings in the Coronazoic age. And now it’s the monthly IWSG question: In this time when our world is in crisis with the covid-19 pandemic, our optional question this month is: how are things in your world? (Want to see some other great IWSG posts? Check out the list of participants here. (Powered by Linky Tools)

So, how am I? I’m fine.

I’m a homebody by nature, and I’m very good at entertaining myself. So for the most part, I’m one of those annoying people that get ridiculed regularly in quarantine memes. I’m working at home–productively–and making time for professional development. I’m writing regularly, cooking from scratch, reading, getting adequate sleep on a regular schedule, taking walks outside, and working in my garden. Hell, I’m exercising more than I have in years. I think it must be quarantine-induced insanity, but I’ve become obsessed with my step count and hyper-competitive in the FitBit Workweek Hustle challenge I participate in with co-workers. As I write this, it’s not quite 2 PM, and I have over 10,000 steps. But I’m not in first place–damn you, Sue B.–so I need to find a way to blog and walk at the same time.

I’m also more relaxed than I’ve been in at least two decades. Call it quarantine if you want. I’m calling it an extended retreat or maybe a sabbatical.

So, yeah, I’m doing just fine.

But.

When I lie in bed at night after a long day of productivity and feeding the FitBit, I look at my husband and wonder if I’ll lose him to this damn disease. Or if he’ll lose me. If our son will lose a parent. Or (please, God, no) both parents.

I read about someone younger than me dying of this thing, and I feel the tube in my throat, hear the rasp of the ventilator. Or feel the air hunger as I gasp on a gurney in a hospital hallway, because there are no ICU beds and no ventilators.

I should make a list of all our accounts and insurance policies with passwords and contact information, so if I go, my husband and son will know what to do. But I don’t do that. I can’t do that. Because I am a coward, and if I do that, I will have to face the possibility such an act implies. And I can’t.

Better get some more steps in instead. Gotta catch up to Sue B. Does that woman ever sit down?

I contemplate the next few months–or years–and I remember my father’s stories of growing up during the Great Depression. Of going to bed hungry. Of squabbling with his siblings over the last chicken foot. Because that’s what the children got: the feet. The adults were working to help the family survive and needed the meatier pieces so they would have the strength to keep going.

Please, God, don’t let my son have to live like that.

I look at my friends list on Facebook and wonder whose page will become a memorial. Whose family will grieve. Whose spark of life will disappear from the world forever.

And I take another walk or pick up a book or watch another webinar until the blanket of denial is thick enough to shield me from the possibilities I cannot bear to face. I lounge in an oversized Def Leppard t-shirt and grease-stained yoga pants, fashion icon that I am, and grasp at whatever I can reach to keep the fear at bay, to retain some sense of control in a world running further off the rails with every presidential press conference.

How am I doing? I’m fine. We’re all fine here, now, thank you.

How are you?

12 Comments

  • joylenebutler

    It’s almost funny what the brain thinks during times like these. I was just wondering today what would happen to my blog. None of my family reads it, so it would be the last thing they’d think about. We’re fine too. I think the secret is to cut back on the amount of network news. And FB. Some of my groups got way out of hand. It’s quiet now. I like it.

    • Janet Crum

      Yeah, I’ve definitely cut back on the news and social media. I can feel my mood decline within 5 minutes of opening Facebook or Twitter–and that was true BC (Before Covid-19). I just try to truck along, do what needs to be done, and enjoy as much of it as I can.

  • Joanna Z. Weston

    I’m glad you’re (mostly) managing to keep the fear at bay. These are legitimately scary times. I hope your distractions serve you well, and that your family gets through this unscathed!

  • Erika Beebe

    Oh Janet, you really got to me. Sending prayers for health and hopefulness. These are such uncertain times again, a great reminder that no matter how far the world advances, we are still vulnerable on some level. My family is fine for now too, but I worry as I heard of talks of turning sports arenas into hospitals. Hurts my heart.

    • Janet Crum

      You are so right. We are all vulnerable–and we are all interdependent. So glad your family is OK. Prayers for you and yours, that you may keep safe and stay strong during this time. Thanks for stopping by.

  • jennienzor

    I am like you. I can easily entertain myself, and I enjoy being at home. But there’s a difference when you want to stay at home and not having a choice as we do now. I have found staying off the news/social media helps me. I don’t really get scared. I’m trying to trust God and just focus on each day, which is easier said than done.
    But if I just focus on what I can control–my own attitude and helping those around me to focus on the good, that makes things easier.

    • Janet Crum

      I’m trying a similar approach. I’m not scared, exactly, though I could easily get scared if I dwelled on what could happen. But like you, I’m trying to focus on what I can control and take care of myself physically, mentally, and spiritually.

  • doreenb8

    I feel bad saying I’m enjoying my time alone, with my husband but he works 12 hour days 6 days a week and is home now. It is actually relaxing.
    That said it is a terrifying time too. I’ve put off writing that stuff down too. It would make it too real.

    • Janet Crum

      Yeah, for the most part, I’m enjoying myself, and I feel guilty saying it too. My husband and son are night owls, and I am not, so I have quite a bit of time to myself each day before they wake up. I have meaningful work to do at home, writing to do, blogging to do, exercise, books. It really isn’t so bad… as long as I don’t think too hard about why I’m staying home.

    • Janet Crum

      Sue B. is killin’ me this week! I don’t think she ever sits down or sleeps. Maybe we should start an IWSG Fitbit challenge 🙂