Day 14.
We started this two weeks ago. Holy shit.
I'm discovering that it's easier for me to journal about this on crappier days. Therefore, I'm sure you've deduced that today is crappy. Haha. In the present moment, I woke up not wanting to wake up. I can't decide if that has more to do with margarita consumption or more to do with general malaise over the economy. I think people are all getting stir crazy and it shows. Taking a break from social media for the rest of the afternoon will be beneficial for me. Owen has his first Zoom meeting with his class today. Going to attempt to not lose my shit and cry. Last night Ms. D called the school with one of her recorded messages and at the very end, her voice broke and that was it. I had several days in a row where I didn't cry - streak busted.
Picking up where we last left of, we started this two weeks ago on Friday, March 13th. It was very unclear as to whether I was expected to be at work. I opted not to go (this turned out after the fact to be totally fine as we were paid for that day anyway) mainly because my husband was traveling all week and I was concerned about potential exposure and Owen was going to be at home so I felt like I should stay with him. I think at that point, this still felt like it was going to be a little bit of time off? I don't know, I don't remember. I remember being shell shocked but mostly life was going on around us.
I got up early and went to Food Town, our local market that is super close to the neighborhood. I also had a Curbside order scheduled at HEB for the late afternoon that I tried to cancel but I couldn't get through. I was concerned that none of it would get filled anyway so we left it as is. Food Town was crazy. The lines to check out made me think of what life would be like in a socialist country. It was horrifying on a million different levels. I got a cart full of groceries - not gonna lie - a LOT of snacks and junk food. I was exhausted from not sleeping and I feel like I possibly had a little hangover that day? I was freaking out about my brother and Sara getting out of Paris. They were scheduled on the super late flight. I wondered what would (or wouldn't) await them at US Customs. I started freaking out about my flight attendant friends.
GAH. Sidebar. I just got an email from the credit union we keep Owen's money in locally that you can borrow up to $4K right now with no collateral and no payments for 60 days. That is so depressing.
Anyway, we ate dinner at home, I think we had my mom over once or twice for dinner that weekend? I drank A LOT. I watched too much depressing news. I was so bummed about not getting to go to Cozumel. That whole weekend sucked. I kept thinking about the Sliding Doors version of life where we were doing laundry and packing for our trip. The one bright side was that we finally bought stock in Peloton, which I'd been wanting to do since they went public.
Mikey and Sara made it home super late Friday night. Texting with them (they got internet on the flight back to the US) as they worked their way over the Atlantic was so sad. They were trying to piece together what on earth was going on in the United States. They were facing a 14 day quarantine away from their kid. Dad and Eileen decided to keep him over that time. In my head it was still just a two week thing we were looking at.
Fast forward to Monday 3/16, the first day of "Spring Break" for Owen and I. Since we weren't going out of town, Adam canceled his PTO and went into the office to work. I was adrift. There was nothing to do work wise, nothing to do for Owen school wise (lots of my friends already had school work to do with their kids). I just watched the news like an idiot and sat around feeling totally bummed. Owen watched ALL the Nick Junior that week and eventually moved into the guest room with the TV. On Monday afternoon, Trump had a press conference and I went into our bedroom to watch it. I was sitting on the floor in front of my bed texting with Tara as we watched the horror. The CDC changed the social distancing guidelines to be "no gatherings of more than 10 people for the next 8 weeks". That shit hit me hard. EIGHT WEEKS. EIGHT WEEKS. Coming from freaking Trump. Holy shit. At some point soon after that, school pushed back to starting 4/13, the week after Easter, but privately they've been telling us all along not to expect to come back at all to finish the year. Right after that, Harris County and the City of Houston ordered bars and restaurants to close their dining rooms and move to take out only. What in the fresh hell was going on?
No sports. No theater. No spaces where people gather. No travel. No restaurants. A really large portion of the things I love, stripped from life in what felt like an instant. It was a LOT LOT LOT to take in. I kept thinking, this has never happened in not only my lifetime, but even in my parents' lifetimes, which is kind of bananas.
I remember Monday night being really surly on Facebook. We were already pretty damn close to lockdown status in Houston, but it seemed like a lot of the country still didn't get it.
We switched gears from "Eat All Dinners At Home From Our Grocery Stockpile" to "Order Takeout Every Night For Dinner". Which is no big deal but again it was another crazy shift from Life Before Corona to what we're living now. I realized this was NOT going to be a two week "vacation" from responsibilities. This was the long haul. I hoped and still hope we have restaurants to go back to when this is all over.
At that point, Adam and I were anticipating that Trump had laid the groundwork for what we assumed would be a nationwide shut down by the end of the week...
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