I take a break to pause The Handmaids Tale on Hulu. I just started watching it a few days ago and the similarities to our life right now our uncanny. 
They flashback during the show about their times before the government took over control and changed everything.  It shows them waiting at taco trucks, laughing at their tinder photos, talking about the days work at the office.


It seems so normal but also so long ago.  We are in the middle of a pandemic. Covid 19.  It started they say in China earlier this year.  It spread to the US (at least officially) in March. A few days before St. Patricks day a worldwide sweep put us all to sleep.  Work from home, business closed, restaurants hung up signs turning customers away.  Hair and nail salons, barber shops, and tattoo parlors turned into empty graveyards.  Never in our life had we experienced anything like this.  Fear ignited each and every friend of mine from California to Maine.  We hunkered down if we were non essential and those of us in essental jobs were given a crumb of normalcy still heading into work.

I believe being able to work saved me.  My gym and yoga studio were dark and forbidden.  They are the places that would help my demons escape through sore muscles.  My concerts tickets I had bought were refunded with no rescheduled date in site.  Grocery stores became a space of necessity as toilet paper and flour was rare to find and shelves sat empty and abandoned.  People no longer roamed the isles killing extra minutes and smiling.  You spent as little as time as you could, you may be asked to wear a mask and move down an isle in a certain direction.  All the while making sure to maintain the 6 feet social distance from another person.  The intercom music that I often would roll my eyes at the lack of good music choice was replaced with a message every 15 minutes stating if you are sick of coughing to please stay home.  It was like those shows you watch were the world ends and the store is full of bright lights and loud music. 

Bars are a thing of the past, being able to distract ourselves with a Green Tea shot and draft beer with a group of friends is a distant memory.  You are allowed to walk, as long as you distance, so we walk and walk and walk. My strava app collects the multitude of miles I have walked through Covid.
As with anything you have good days and bad days.  Today is a day where I have a multitude of thoughts pour through me, maybe I should repaint the living room? Maybe I should go on that new mountain bike trail, maybe I should organize my closet, or finally file all those bills.  Maybe I should paint the next Picasso or fill my bird feeders.  The maybes trail at high speeds through my brain until the fall like dead leaves on the floor beside my trunk. 

The kids seem ok with it, xbox and virtual worlds keep them distracted.  My youngest just yesterday looking out the front screen door at his best friends across the street and asked "Is the virus..the sick thing gone yet?"  I calmly say "No Jack, its still around".  I think of what a weird world I'm living in that I'm telling my 5 year old son he still cannot play with frineds two months later because a sickness has poisoned our land.  Marriage in the normal world is hard, we often make it through with distractions and vacations to help the ship sail to the next island or hiccup.  Currrenlty the ships are not sailing.  Being sequestered to the same living space with no one ever leaving causes a lot of strain on everyone. 

I do my dill diligence of putting things into place to help my mental space.  The walks, the half attempt at a dumbell workout, a few measly pushups. A phone call to schedule ongoing therapy again. When I walked out of her office two years ago happy and smiling of my progressive, I never thought I would be returning on this account.   Alcohol is great for numbing and providing fake laughs but when the Alice in Wonderland poison starts to wear off you realize that your right back in the land you started from.  They say its temporary, in fact a few things are starting to reopen.  But I do have to wonder what the new reality will be for all of us.  Mentally, financially, emotionally.  We have been imprinted with a change forever.  Only time will tell whether its a good change or a bad change.