Self isolation day 7
April 1 2020
Watched the new Pet Cemetery last night, it was a welcome distraction. It made me forget about all this coronavirus virus tragedy around us and made the world feel normal for a little while. It hasn’t been that long but can you even remember when COVID-19 wasn’t constantly in the back of your mind? This lurking threat to you, or a loved one. If your young and healthy, I’m glad for you, but who doesn’t have an older relative…or know someone with an underlying condition? Lets say you are blessed to have everyone healthy in your life still, the virus can cause chaos on your your healthy body if infected. It seems the more information gathered about it the worse it sounds.
I truly welcomed the distraction of the horror movie from the real horror outside my apartment door. I couldn’t help but wonder as the credits rolled up at the end of the movie why Stephen King was never inspired to write a horror novel featuring a virus as the evil entity and just like that…my mind popped back into the real horror movie of life.
Don’t get me wrong, even being sick with whatever I caught from being in public I consider myself extremely lucky. I have a wonderful doctor that treated me fast through video and email. I started on antibiotics fast to hopefully prevent pneumonia. Even having heart failure, lupus, epilepsy and my heart arrhythmia I consider myself very fortunate to be alive this long despite the constant pain. So when I say, “the horrors of life” by no means am I talking about me. I’m lucky living safely in isolation from an apartment surrounded by lush trees. I can see the bay and hear the sparrows sing, I feel safe in a gated community engulfed by nature. Corpus Christi isn’t overwhelmed by cases compared to bigger cities so far. ( knock on wood it stays that way ) I love my home town of San Antonio but I’m lucky I’m not living there right now.
The horrors of life as we know it now, I’m referring to our brave selfless medical workers putting their lives and their families lives at risk in order to save the world. I’m talking about grocery workers and truck drivers that stepped up and face dangers they never signed up for in order to keep our society from collapsing and going into panic. Our police officers, our sanitation workers, our fireman, that we constantly take for granted but we especially should appreciate during these times because they are truly essential. Our volunteers that help one of the most vulnerable groups right now that are often left behind, the homeless. Our postal workers, they are just as important…mail is so important more than ever now since many businesses and schools are closed we’ve had to go back to depending on mail more heavily. Our fast food workers in the drive thru, the restaurant delivery workers, it’s not a glamorous job one bit, they aren’t seen as brave but they can unknowingly face the virus just like all the other people I mention. They provide an important service too, not everyone can get to the grocery store like our health care workers or truck drivers, or have enough time or energy to cook. All these people have one thing in common. They go out day after day and face risking the invisible enemy for us. The are our backbone of our communities to keep society running smoothly, to help us survive and cope during this crisis. They resemble some sense of normalcy in our lives when so many things have changed so swiftly.
Those people I listed are the ones I’m speaking of, how their lives are upside down. Including the vulnerable to this virus, the ones fallen ill and their families. Life has completely changed in ways we could have never imagined, and not because we can’t go and enjoy the free WiFi at Starbucks right now. It’s because we as a whole.. living in America take life for granted. America is wonderful for so many reasons and part of it being so wonderful is the downfall of thinking nothing bad can actually happen to us personally. Not here while living in a first world country, not in my safe US of A.
[There is nothing that can diminish the seriousness of 911. The key difference is it wasn’t wide spread across the United States and enduring long term.]
This is not meant to be political or about America at all just to be clear. My point is, I think we will all look at life in a very different way from now on, and hopefully appreciate the small things we take for granted. Simple pleasures we never thought could be dangerous or taken away for our own safety like going to the park or going out for coffee. We are lucky enough to make the mistake of taking life for granted because we feel so safe in the warm embrace of the red white and blue. Luck can only take us so far, we are witnessing history here, and those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Any other essential persons I forgot I’m so sorry, I plead seizure brain and have no problem being corrected.
lambwaffle 