Now the Fear Sets In

I had a meltdown the other night. In hindsight, it was probably coming for a while but when I was talking with a friend about how lonely I was feeling that night, I guess I didn’t realize how lonely I’ve been since this all started. Like a lot of people, I’ve had social distancing cocktail hours outside with my neighbors, I walk with my friend Julie several times a week, I’m also talking on the phone more than I have in years. But the loneliness of eating alone, night after night, drinking wine every night because I’m not working the next day and the long evenings spent watching too much television –  yup, it’s getting to me. I despaired because even though I was on the phone confiding my fears, hoping to hear something I wanted to hear?  I listened to the voice on the other end telling me, we might never get back to what we know as normal – and that hit me. Hard. I am so alone in all this and I might add, there’s no hope of finding my person any time soon –  because we can’t. I couldn’t stop the tears with the realization: This could be a while. 

We’re all running out of projects, just like we’re running out of money. If I’ve learned anything from all this, it’s that as much as we all like to have some alone time, we’re no good with too much. We need people. We want to socialize. We want to cuddle and kiss and hug and shake hands with our friends. I know, I know, there are lots of people with families who are all on top of each other right now, bickering from too much togetherness and not enough privacy. Rather than another baby boom in nine months, maybe the divorce rate will rise instead? Feast or famine right? But, I know I’d much rather have my family with me in a crisis than not. 

I wonder how many people feel like me because they are without a significant other to confide their fears in or talk through the convoluted “facts,” or the mountains of (mis)information, the so-called data and the models that keep adjusting? It feels like solitary confinement with internet service. I needed to release and acknowledge this pent-up frustration because no amount of painting, writing, cooking or creating zen gardens (yes, I did that too) can relieve it. I must’ve needed a good cry. 

I’ve started running again too, because I need to get rid of all this negative energy but obviously, I can’t run all day. So I’m still working on finding ways to gain perspective and stay positive during this time, even while it feels like all is lost. Then last night, I started watching a Masterpiece Theater series called, “World on Fire,” about when the Nazis invaded Poland. The country of Poland – all of her cities filled with architectural masterpieces and buildings of antiquity, were completely decimated by German bombs, tanks and heavy artillery  – and that, was the least of the damage. Families were torn apart, sent to concentration camps, killed in the bombings or facing a firing squad for the mere crime of being Jewish. Complete and utter devastation. There were food shortages. People were starving. No shops to buy anything. There was no “home” left, to shelter in. There was no place to go at all. In those first moments after the bombs fell, when Poland surrendered – The World changed. 

No one ever expects it or wants, change like that. Or like this. No one sees it coming because we take for granted that life will always continue on with the routines we know. We get up every day, turn the coffee on, shower, listen to the news while we get ready for work; then drive to work, take our lunch break, drive home the same route every day, fix dinner, tuck the children in, watch a little TV, go to bed. And then we do it all again in the morning. But this is our life. It’s what we know. It’s what we do. We don’t stay home all the time. We go to the gym, we meet friends for dinner, we go to concerts and ballgames and we fish and play tennis and go to beaches and parks and recreate – and we are around people. And, if you’re single you date, hoping to find THE ONE you want to shelter with every day, before something like this happens.

But then the world changed. Overnight. And we are forced to change with it, or your neighbors are encouraged by the government to report any insurrection, just as the Germans reported their Jewish neighbors. We surrender because the “Nazis” now make the rules. How do we get through this without giving everything away? We’ve already surrendered. For the good of America right? So they tell us. But not everyone in the World knew what was going on in Germany because it was kept quiet. But Poland knew. The German people who turned their backs? They knew too. The Jewish people knew. And eventually, everyone knew. And then they fought back. The World fought back. So when do we march again?

What will this new normal look like? Will we rebuild the “cities?” Will we ever gather again to listen to music among several hundred strangers? Will we be allowed to watch our children’s soccer games from the sidelines or sit in an auditorium filled with parents and grandparents listening to them play the violin or dance in their recitals? I have a feeling the fear has already settled in as the new normal. Gone are the days of all things that makes us feel like we belong to the human race. Gone are the days of hand holding, hugging, kissing or any type of PDA, let alone being able to see someone’s face again.  But let me be clear, I’m not encouraging anyone to ignore health warnings. Not yet. But I am encouraging, no, I am emphatically begging you: Remember what we’ve lost. Don’t forget what it felt like to live without fear. The War did end and the World did carry on. Carry on America.