Murmurs from inside

Let's lay out the basics of the situation first.  For reasons that I don't feel obligated to disclose, my family and I have been in lockdown since the pandemic began.  Well, not exactly when it began.  That information was withheld by the idiot in charge of the country.  But when they called for a lockdown, we started and we haven't stopped.

Photo by Michael Jasmund on Unsplash

For a while there everybody else participated.  We all shared stories of what it was like spending all this time at home with the family instead of going out into the world. Running to the grocery store for a gallon of milk became a thing of the past.  Orders had to be placed.  Arrangements had to be made.  Things had to be quarantined for a period of time before they could be opened.  Everybody seemed to be on board.  Then it got warmer.

I hate the summer, so the idea that I had to stay inside wasn't a bother for me, but for some, it was a torment that they couldn't endure, even in the face of possible death of themselves or their loved ones.  No, they just HAD to go to the beach.  It's tradition!

So this pandemic is lasting longer than it should, and now that all of the idiots have it out of their system they're mostly back home.  Only now they want to send their plague children to school, and so on, and so on.  You don't need me to lay it out for you.  That's not what this is about.

Being a family that has stayed home this whole time, we have been confronted with new and interesting things to deal with.  It seems everybody is getting together, telling themselves they are safely enclosed in "bubbles" they create but willingly ignorant of how transmission works.  We, meanwhile, are saying no to things and staying in.  For my extroverted wife and daughter it has been a torment.  My wife wants to see people, to interact, to stand next to each other and hug.  My daughter wants to see her friends, to kick a ball around or dance.  Me?  I'm okay staying in.  It's them I'm worried about.

People are pretending like everything is normal when it isn't.  It's infuriating.  I've been lucky in that I have been allowed to work from home, so my perspective is a bit skewed.  I see people out in the world and it makes me angry, then I have to remind myself that they still have to go to work and make money to feed their families and I calm down.  Then I see they're not wearing masks and my rage boils up again.  How hard is it to follow simple instructions?

Photo by Vera Davidova on Unsplash

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this.  Another side effect of being locked in during a pandemic and an election is that with all the stresses in the world my creativity has taken a nosedive.  I have occasional spurts of creative frenzy, then it all dries up.  My mind is so clouded I couldn't tell you right now what I said at the beginning of this post.  I may be repeating myself.  If so, I apologize, but that's just the way it is.  My mind is atrophying and this is the result.

So, take care of yourselves, people.  And take care of other people.  And be safe, and kind, and smart, and considerate, and just try to be damn good people because that's the only way we're going to get through this.
​I hope.