The Coronavirus Post

I struggle with anxiety.  I have for most of my life.  In dire situations, however, I'm generally oddly calm.  It's like my brain can only process so much anxiety at a time before it stops processing it altogether.

I wish now was one of those times.

On Thursday night, we got the calls that we'd been dreading but expecting... my son's school district and the district that I teach in were both closing for an undetermined amount of time.  We're thinking two weeks, but nobody knows for sure.

Up until that time, I'd been only half-paying attention to the whole coronavirus thing.  It was something Out There, but not near me.  I was concerned, but not worried.  Not really.  In fact, part of me was feeling that the media was blowing it a bit out of proportion.  After all, the flu killed more people every year than coronavirus did, didn't it?  And nobody was freaking out about THAT.

But now, people in my own profession had deemed that being in school was suddenly Not Safe.  We'd made two weeks' worth of online lessons for our students, "just in case we close."  Unfortunately, we were later told, they would not be sufficient to count as "school days" or as "virtual learning."  We were also told that we need to expect to be in school until June 30... not something any teacher in an un-air-conditioned building wants to hear.  But that's as may be.  Right now, the focus is on keeping our staff and students as far away from disease-transmitting crowds as possible.

This has left me at something of loose ends.  I do not do well with unstructured time.  Even in the summer, when I'm supposed to be resting and recuperating from the school year, I find myself getting twitchy, even anxious, when I don't have enough to occupy my mind.  Cleaning and doing indefinite "stuff around the house" doesn't help.  I don't enjoy it or find any release in it.  Writing, as I've addressed elsewhere on this blog, doesn't always materialize.  Exercise?  Taking a walk?  Don't make me laugh... that never helps, and generally only makes me more miserable.  I tend to fill my time instead by running errands, window shopping, visiting family and friends.

None of which is apparently safe to do in this current situation.

I did go out yesterday to buy a charger for my dying iPad.  I felt... odd.  Exposed.  I fled back to my car with my purchase, shaking.  A friend and I had plans for dinner that night, plans I did not want to break despite my mounting anxiety.  After being excoriated by my younger sister for voicing my fears - to quote, "This is not a vacation!  You do not go out to dinner in the middle of a pandemic!" - I went out anyway.  And fretted almost the entire time.  What, exactly, was I afraid of?  Not of getting the dreaded virus... I don't LIKE the idea of getting sick, not at all, but I'm not really afraid of getting it.

I'm afraid of being trapped at home.

I'm afraid that going out and conducting life as usual is something I am not supposed to be doing, and that thought makes me feel positively claustrophobic.

I love my family, and like my home.  But I don't like spending all my time there.  The "why" of that would take up an entire blog post in itself, so I won't even try to explain... the fact is, I'm happiest with my home when I can get away from it on a regular basis, and then come back.  But if the coronavirus is as bad as I'm beginning to think it is... it's simply not safe to leave the house.  And to do so is a sign of denial or irresponsibility.

And so my anxiety is spiking.

My mother and my best friend both tell me I need to make a schedule for my days out of school, and plan in times to take walks with my son and the dog, time to write, time to work on projects around the house like cleaning out closets and such.  They're probably right.  My younger sister says I just need to tough it out and stay at home.  Another friend says we need to be ordering groceries and household necessities online rather than going out to get them.  They may be right, too.  Do I want to listen to any of them?

Not really.

I just want my life to continue as I'm accustomed to it, without the specter of a deadly virus looming over everything.  I'd say, "Is that so much to ask?" - but right now, it probably is.

So I probably will make the schedule, or at least a to-do list.  And I'll try to stay home as much as I can... and instead of going to stores, I'll see if substituting the dog park and walks with my son will help any.

But am I looking forward to the next few weeks?

Oh, no.

I am certainly not.