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If I have learned anything about myself since the whole COVID-19 pandemic changed our way of life, it is that I need a whole lot less human interaction than most folks. When the stay-at-home order was first put in place I joked about training for this my entire life. As an introvert, I love it. It's deeply satisfying to hole up at home and not need to socialize with anyone beyond my immediate family. But as the weeks grind on and I hear of extroverts who are languishing to go out and hug someone, and the moms that are barely hanging on by a thread due to little people underfoot 24/7 or being forced to homeschool... well, I realize if this had struck at a different stage of my life I would not be enjoying it so much. So I am trying to be empathetic with those who are not enjoying this. (And I do feel genuinely bad for those who had a wedding planned or needed to have a funeral. Quarantined weddings & funerals have got to be the worst.)
I hear comments from some who didn't mind quarantining at first, but have reached the point of "enough is enough". But I'm the oddball over here not at all ready yet for it to end. I have quarantine interviews we are filling out as a family for future scrapbook pages and one item is "the first place I want to go after this is over is _____ " I am drawing a blank on that one; my answer is nowhere, stay at home. LOL While I'm a teeny bit sad about cancelling a whole host of things on our April calendar, I'm hoping when the stay-at-home order is lifted, our life will NOT go back to what it was before. Too much pressure to be busy. I don't want all the pressure to do this and do that, and you're a terrible person if you don't support every project/activity the church is involved in. Some of us are not energized by being around people, so this time of staying at home is recharging our emotional batteries. I'm very reluctant to give that up.
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I am limiting my time on social media because frankly I feel more emotionally stable when I keep my distance. I find much of the content either confusing or depressing. Nothing gets my guard up faster than some post that is going viral in the Mennonite world. It's way too easy to share a post without digging for facts first- is it true? I mean come on, anyone can buy a pair of scrubs, dress up like a doctor [or nurse some other variety of healthcare professional] and spout off their viewpoints. If you don't personally know them how do you know that they are not lying about their credentials? Making their "facts" up? Or have a very biased agenda based on their own limited reality? (Not all areas of the country are hot spots so what's true here might not be true where you are, for example.) Personally I'm skeptical of these types because I believe the real doctors and nurses are too busy saving lives to be interested in going viral on social media. And nothing raises my blood pressure quite like gullibility.
It's confusing when the New York Times reports that our state governor is soaring in popularity and 80% of survey respondents approve of the way he is handling things, on the same day there was a huge public outcry against his mandate that face masks are going to become mandatory. Both reports can't be correct, so which is true? What can we believe?
If you believe a certain thing, you can certainly find "evidence" on the internet that agrees with your belief system. If you think this is all a conspiracy theory you can find "experts" that tell you your hunch is right. If you think the virus is being blown way out of proportion and not nearly as dangerous as projected, you can find numbers supporting your idea. You can manipulate numbers to make them say whatever you want them to say.
It's depressing in that I can get caught up in comparison. It feels like everyone else is out there being the cool mom, doing creative things with their kids, making quarantine memories. Or everyone else is saving the world! Here we are- just being boring, go about our day like usual. #Can'tTakeThePressure
For myself, having family risking so much to work in healthcare... I hear what they are dealing with in the hot spots and it doesn't line up with much of what is on social media... so I just don't have time for drama in my life. I don't have much tolerance for drama any time but I believe snooze on FB was created for such a time as this. Right at first [when the stay-at-home order started] I thought FB had some of the best content ever! People were coming up with the most creative memes and sharing their talent in fun ways, like funny songs about toilet paper -or lack thereof-
Speaking of toilet paper... I didn't fact-check this but I did read an article that the real reason there are toilet paper shortages is not that people are hoarding it [aside from a few isolated cases] but that sales of commercial toilet paper was down 40% due to the closure of restaurants and non-essential businesses. There is a significant increase in folks 'doing their business' at home and the manufacturers of residential toilet paper can't produce it fast enough to keep up with the temporary increase in demand. Makes sense to me.
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The other day I saw a post on FB and my first reaction was that it was funny. It was a long list about the way the experts keep changing their recommendations, such as wearing a mask doesn't protect you at all, except it does, so wear a mask. Then it occurred to me that it really wasn't funny at all. It was snarky and disrespectful of leaders who are doing the best they can with the information they have at the time. I believe 20/20 vision will come in hindsight concerning COVID-19. (pun intended)
I look at it this way- when I am learning a new job it's very stressful because I know that customers are impatient with my fumbling and inexperience. My trainer is looking over my shoulder; let's just say I don't do my best work when someone is peering over my shoulder. It feels overwhelming, like I will never remember everything I need to know/do. Is it just me or is anyone with me on this? That is why I make a practice of trying to offer encouragement to the new teller at the bank or new cashier at the store. Everyone has to start somewhere.
Which brings me back to the snarky post. There is scarcely a man alive today who was alive during the last pandemic, so we have a whole lot of people trying to figure out how to do a "new" job. Making fun of them for changing their recommendations as they gain experience/new data... or looking over their shoulder criticizing their every move... I'll let you decide if that is how you want to response. Something we heard a lot while growing up was that we should not criticize someone else unless we're willing -and able- to do their job better. We might not agree with everything our government is deciding and saying right now, but I for one would not want their job. I don't think we're entitled to criticize how they are handling things.That's not to say we have to agree with everything, but that we should keep our less-than-complimentary opinions to ourselves.
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All this talk about the flu kills X amount of people every year and coronavirus killed just x amount, yet we don't shut down the whole country for the flu. Am I the only person who noticed? Those reports are taking the numbers for a whole year and comparing them to just 3 months of coronavirus. We don't have a whole year's worth of coronavirus numbers yet. It's not comparing apples with apples.
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We hear the word unprecedented a lot lately. By definition it means "never done or known before". I'm being a stickler for detail here, but a pandemic is actually not unprecedented. It's just unprecedented in my lifetime. Thankfully.
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I've been sewing face masks for various organizations, including our local hospital who distributes one to every discharged patient.
On the other hand, if it is proven to help even somewhat, I'm happy to have done my part.
It is a little disconcerting to think how quickly our religious freedom could be taken away. I'm not sure I want to be forced into getting a vaccine either. But I firmly believe that if there is evil coming down the pike ie. the mark of the beast, we will not stumble into accepting it unaware. God promises if we seek Him we won't be deceived.
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Speaking of vaccines... I know it's a can-of-worms subject. I have some mixed feelings about it myself. I'm not getting into that. I haven't taken time to do any research and I don't trust much of what I can find on the internet anyway, but I'm asking myself is there anything to herd immunity? Does Sweden have the right idea? I mean, come on, our mothers spit in a hankie and cleaned our faces with it!! We didn't die from germs, from lack of hand sanitizer in our mother's purse (for the record- I always thought that was gross and vowed not to do it to my kids. We tend to become our mothers, but in this I did not.) I believe we were made stronger by drinking out of the garden hose and riding in the back of pickup trucks.
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I could post pictures of what we're doing during quarantine, but our everyday life doesn't seem all that newsworthy. I am ahead of schedule with my spring cleaning. Yay! In addition to deep cleaning Jeremy's room, I gave it a fresh coat of paint. I wasn't too sure about navy paint -too dark?- but I like it now. It looks distinguished and pilot-ish.
Even though I've struggled with mental health in the past, I can't relate with those who are spiraling into depression due to quarantine. I can't judge others by my set of circumstances, but I believe there is no excuse for me to be depressed at this time. I also can't relate to those who are scared. Maybe I'm being naive and missing something but I'm just not feeling it.
The question of the hour seems to be -is the government, or the medical professionals, or the media, lying to us? Do they have an agenda? If so, what is it? (For whatever it's worth, some of the conspiracy theories I've seen strike me as bizarre because they are purely American while this is a global situation. If the pandemic had anything to do with XYZ, why is Ghana and Jamaica quarantined too? I don't understand.)
My question of the hour is -how do we determine if/when we're being sheep blindly following authority figures who may or may not have our best interests at heart? There are so many unknowns at this point. Is it okay for Christians to decide we are going to -for example- meet at church again regardless of what the governor says? To argue its okay because God's law is above man's law? Assuming our governors are speaking truth to the best of their abilities and they do have our best interest at heart, is it not arrogant and very disrespectful to violate their orders? I am not a scientist or expert, I have not studied diseases. There are people who have a career in those fields who are advising our government. So I am not comfortable at this point defying government orders. I have not come across any convincing evidence yet that there is an agenda and we should be going against their orders. Does that make me deceived?
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In my opinion, the problem locally is that no one knows anyone personally who had coronavirus. (The only person I know was a great-aunt.) Our cases here are much lower than where my family lives. Our county hasn’t even had any hospitalized cases –to my knowledge the few cases all recovered at home. No deaths. That makes it feel like a vague danger out there somewhere, mostly a lot of hype about nothing. BUT just because it's not my reality does not make it a hoax. With a relative being a doctor in NYC and a brother as an ICU nurse at a major trauma center, we've heard real stories from a reliable source. True, the virus is not near as dangerous as the first predictions, but the scary part is we can’t yet predict who will respond poorly to it, ie. the minority that end up in the hospital on a ventilator. The families who have lost loved ones or have a loved one permanently handicapped don’t care about statistics. Trying telling them that they should calm down because only X percentage of people get really sick. I’m just saying opinions would change quite a bit if our own people started dying.
However, I do believe we need to get the economy moving again. We cannot quarantine until all danger is past. We cannot isolate ourselves from every danger or pain. Jesus told us "in this life you will have trouble. But do not fear, I have overcome."
I find it very interesting that 100% of the folks I know who are vocal about the virus being a hoax or about conspiracy theories or whatever, are all people whose health has not been affected by the virus at all but have been deeply affected financially by the shutdown. When I realized this connection, it gave me compassion for them.
In my last post I indicated that we are not seeing much difference in the trucking world. But as people stayed home/were not working, the need for inventory slowed to a trickle and freight needing hauled is currently a rare commodity. Richard hasn't been working. The big dogs like Amazon and Walmart are steaming full speed ahead, but not the markets we're in. Most freight is so cheap right now that we'd be losing money to haul it. We're not living paycheck-to-paycheck so we can survive short term, but this won't be sustainable long-term.
Not that my opinion matters, but I think those who want to get back to work should be allowed to do so. Without being condescending of those who do not feel safe yet going out in public. The high-risk should stay at home, if they want/need to. I think that those who go back into circulation should practice social distancing out of respect for others, even if they personally think it's unnecessary. I find it alarming that we are so quick to put others in our box and judge them for not thinking like we do.
Jeremy got to go back to full-time quicker than anticipated, which was a blessing. Hopefully the small airports will open back up soon and he can back to flying, too. And Arianna has always been 'slammed' at the store ever since this began. I expected people would stockpile for a week or two, then it would go back to normal-ish but that was not the case. Apparently people eat out more than I knew and those people are cooking at home now ie. needing extra groceries. Hint: Be nice to the cashiers when you go to a store. They've had a rough last month. Be kind to everyone. All the time, not just during quarantine times. It's a good policy.
Along with waiting for this pandemic to end, we are also awaiting the birth of our second grandbaby. #exciting! [clapping hands emoji] Could be any day now.
