Tales of Isolation Day #10

Today I dipped really low. Social order appears to be breaking down in the family and our house is a total mess. My children are recovering nicely from being sick. I know this because sibling rivalries and bad attitudes are re-emerging. I am working hard to not wring their adorable little necks.

All the things that we rely on to help us through the stressful times are on hold. A little date night with the husband? Where would we go? Who wants to babysit our germy little tykes? Get everyone out to the bowling alley for a little family fun? Nope. Turn on the TV to watch a baseball game? Nah ah.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am used to living at a fairly constant stress level. I was dealt one of the luckiest hands one could ask for in life, but I have also been thrown some tough challenges and lived through some very dark days. Through it all, I have learned a strategy of surviving just today, or just this hour, or sometimes even just this minute. I solve each problem as it comes. I try not to get overwhelmed. Stick to my routines. Create structure out of chaos.

But what happens when everything falls apart at once? How are we supposed to solve one problem at a time when our jobs are gone and our schools are closed and the economy is crashing and every sniffle and cough terrifies us and people all around us are dying and there seems to be no end in sight to the suffering and fear? Where are our routines? Where are the things we know we can count on?

They are gone. We are all having to create new routines, find new escapes, invent a new kind of structure in the chaos. I don’t know if they are able to fully grasp it, but I have told my children that when this is all over, they will mark their childhoods in the before and after. Just as those of us who remember 9/11, or my parents who remember the JFK assassination, or my grandparents who were forever changed by WWII, the Covid-19 Pandemic will be something that will alter the world forever for the children who are living through it.

I like to imagine that the changes will be for the better. Will this be what drives us toward universal healthcare? Will we finally recognize that providing a basic universal income is fundamental to our commitment to human rights? Will this teach us to see the universality of the human condition? Will we transcend nationality, ethnicity, race, gender, religion, sexuality and socioeconomic status? Will the breakdown of our institutions allow us to rebuild them in a way that provides for fairness and kindness and dignity for all?

I hope so. Sometimes I even believe it. So that is what I focused on doing today… 30 seconds at a time.

• This post appeared as part of a 30 day series on life during the Coronavirus on my blog The Glass Bell at https://rebeccafullerdotblog.wordpress.com/