Unknowingly Living My Last Day of Normalcy: Shifting My New "Normal" During COVID-19 Pandemic
On Thursday morning, I woke up like I did every other day. I got up, dressed in the outfit I laid out the night before, and drove to work. When I arrived I pulled out my phone to lock up for the morning (I work in a secure facility), and saw a text from my aunt: Hey! Are you thinking about canceling your trip this weekend?
I read and reread the message, trying to capture her intent; she’d punctuated her message with one of those little grimacing emojis. I never liked that face...
I hadn’t planned to cancel the trip. It was March, and that weekend was my cousin’s baby shower - my sweet cousin, who I only saw once a year if we were lucky. She was due with her first in April. It would be the last time I’d see her before she’d start motherhood.
But I knew what my aunt was referring to, without her having to say it. I’d been watching the news, but it seemed so far away, right? Nothing that warranted changing my plans. Staring at my phone, my mind started on a jog. I was supposed to be staying at my aunt and uncle’s house for the weekend. I was flying there to be at the shower, but also to see the rest of my family in Cincinnati. I lived eight hours away in DC.
Unsure how to respond right then, I locked up my phone and scanned my badge to open up the office. I plunked down at my desk chair and logged onto my computer, not surprised to see emails from Gregory Coffee (where I frequented for my favorite iced coffee), Skip Scooters, and my church, all detailing their respective measures for sanitizing and moving in-person gatherings to online, indoor seating banned and replaced with curbside pickup. Some, not many, closed their doors altogether. I’d been getting dozens of emails like them for the past week.
Skimming through my news email (the Skimm, v clever), I read one update after the next: over a hundred thousand confirmed cases globally. Three thousand deaths and counting. One death in Federal Way - the Seattle suburb where my sister lived. A new confirmed case in the building down the street, from me this time, in Northern Virginia.
Coworkers started trickling in, everyone stopping by my desk to say hello and take a pump from our giant tub of Purell. Almost reflexively, I reached down in my desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Clorox wipes. When others were out of sight, I wiped down the top half of my desk that dozens of people touched throughout the day (because I sat at the front desk). I took out another one to wipe down my keyboard, mouse, phone, arm chairs, and desk drawers. After tossing both in the trash, I pulled another wipe and got up to head to the bathroom, opening doors with it as I went.
That morning our management pulled us into a meeting. Sternly, we’d been instructed to prepare to telework. For how long, and to what extent, was unclear. But for two days, we prepped our belongings, wrote down passwords, drafted auto-replies, and set our phones on “Do Not Disturb”.
After an exhausting day at work, scrambling to combine everyone’s telework tutorials and policy emails from leadership, and disperse them throughout my team, I drove to Target to pick up some groceries. I had one of those weekly meal delivery subscriptions, but my box for the week had just run out.
Save for a few bags of English muffins, the bread aisle was, incredibly, completely empty. As was the Clorox in the cleaning aisle. And the Purell. With my mom on speaker phone, my brow furrowed, I weaved through all the health and cosmetic aisles in search of aloe vera. Where the heck would that be? I’d never bought aloe vera in my life. The answer was “Would Care,” according to the Target app, but that was gone, too.
I called my aunt and uncle after work, and after assuring me they wanted so badly to see me but worried about my safety and others’ (“We’re concerned about Aimee and the baby, too,” they’d said), I went online and hesitantly canceled my flight.
Coronavirus, it seemed, was everywhere.
I went to bed that night wondering if I’d done the right thing. Was that really necessary?
Saturday, March 21
The next day, Saturday, was my day for hopping coffee shops. I woke up and got ready to head to one of my favorites, a beautiful corner coffee spot in the Eaton hotel, with incredible art-deco-esque black iron window panes and a verdant biophiliac wall. I’d been typing away at work there for a few hours before getting up to refill my water and coffee. When I handed both my cups back to them (my effort to be waste-conscious, of course) the cashier looked at them as if I’d handed her human teeth. “We’re actually not reusing cups,” she said, then added, “but we can give you new ones?”
“Oh, okay, that’s fine,” taking them back. “I’ll go toss them out.” I walked away trying to focus on it being corporate policy, and not to take it personally, though she had drawn away from my reach as though my hands were leprous.
After a few more hours, I took a break from sitting and left to buy a few books at a local bookstore, having read up on how important it was to support local businesses with the sharp dip in retail visits. I bought two NYT bestsellers I’d been eyeing for weeks, Such a Fun Age and Where the Crawdads Sing. I paid more for them than I usually would for books, but it felt good to make a conscious spending decision; plus I figured I’d gift them to friends once I’d finished reading them.
I got back in my car, and my news app lit up my phone: France shutters restaurants, cafes, non-essential stores amid coronavirus outbreak.
When I pulled out a few dollars to pay for a cookie at my second coffee shop visit, once again I was denied by the cashier. “We’re actually not accepting cash right now,” she said simply. “Oh, okay, no problem,” I said, flustered, as I pulled out my credit card. Hearing this, the two girls behind me whispered to each other. When I later went to the bathroom to wash my hands (to the cashier’s likely relief, to wash off the uncleanness of the dirty cash I’d just handled), I looked down on the bathroom counter to read a small sign that read “Handshake-Free Zone: To help reduce the spread of germs, our Cafe is now a handshake free zone.” Above the text was a graphic of a solitary hand, stuck out with gusto for a handshake, but met with varying “dodges” from four other hands: two were waving, the others offered a fist bump.
I sat back down and started typing again. I wrote out my thoughts toward the things I’d witnessed, and read, all over town, all over the news, all over...everywhere. I thought about my parents, nearly in their sixties, and how at-risk they were they, exactly? Right away I wondered about my Papa - my last surviving grandparent - and whether he was adhering to extra precautions to stay home, or being the stubborn old German that he was, saying To hell with it all, and continuing his daily walks.
I thought about how many more events, trips, visits, gatherings I’d been looking forward to, the ones that were canceled and the others that would likely be canceled.
Suddenly, everything physical object was now a talisman for uncleanliness. Lipstick, cooking ware, the steering wheel, car keys, purse, wallet. My phone (which, believe it or not, there are proper and improper ways to clean it, according to this article.) Despite my better judgment, I started listing the things I needed to start cleaning regularly, and kicked myself for waiting for a global pandemic to unfold to finally get around to cleaning my makeup brushes.
On the way home, again my phone lit up: Israel follows suit with France, shuts down stores.
I FaceTimed my boyfriend later that night. He’s been in Thailand for the past twelve days now, on vacation with a friend. Of course he’s heard about this and that getting canceled or shut down back home in the States, but they’re largely cushioned away from the shock of how much is being affected, having missed the worst of it being out of the country. He assures me that they’ve been thermally scanned at several facilities now, each time they pass through an airport or check into a hotel. They seem to be taking more precautions there than in the States.
I hung up and thought about how much research he must have done. Jake was always the planner; I had no doubt he’d read everything the CDC and every other reputable resource online had to offer. Out of an abundance of caution, after twenty-four hours of traveling internationally through the airport, would he decide to avoid kissing or hugging after not seeing each other for two weeks?
The issue, it seems, creates more chaos than public officials can contain. But at times like this, it’s the texts from my boyfriend that read, “The firm just mandated WFH. Telework together?” and from friends: “Please no social distancing from me. Let’s hang out.” It’s the gifted hosts that reach out and bring together (small, don’t worry) groups of us at our homes, to fill the void of no more meetings, concerts, vacations, rallies, conferences, networkings, church services, or happy hours for the indefinite future.
Yes, with the wave of alarming news updates and missed moments from canceled trips and signs in the bathroom with lonely unmet offers for a handshake, it’s easy to feel afraid. My friends with jobs that can’t support much teleworking, like our teachers, may have to look elsewhere for work. With a pandemic at ten times the death rate of the flu, of course we’re uneasy, at best, and at worse, freaking out.
But the steady stream that dowses the flames of fear? Support. Knowing you’re not alone, though some of us may start feeling pretty lonely, especially if they’ll have to self-quarantine. My biggest love languages are physical touch and quality time, so the challenge to find alternatives is definitely there, but thankfully, in this age of sharing, the ideas and brainstorms are endless!
What about you? How are you staying sane, productive, happy, and healthy at each new level of quarantine?
cover image via Slate
