Thu, Apr 23, 2020
Read in 3 minutes
From USA
I have my good days and my bad days “in quarantine.” I had good days and bad days before I was “in quarantine.” We’re all in quarantine – but what does it really mean? When it was a word you’d consider in fiction or alternate realities, it had a very intense connotation. Didn’t it? Now that it is this modern reality – is it that intense? Quasi-quarantine may be a better way to express what some of us are experiencing. The prefix is an important distinction. The degree of intensity associated with the word “quarantine” is marked by anxiety – which is a function of many things; in particular relevance: employment security and grief for humanity (both in direct relationships and humanity as a whole).
I can open the window. I have virtually unlimited access to water. The sun shines through to the rooms in my apartment. I can walk through my door. I can stroll down the street to a local park. I can sit on the picnic bench there and read a book. I can return home and use a computer I purchased a few years ago. I can sit at the desk that’s been lugged around with me throughout my young, adult life… and when I turn on that computer, the sky is the limit…
I can’t go hours without washing my hands. I can’t sit down at a bar for a beer after a long day. I can’t join friends or family at a restaurant. I can’t mindlessly shop for necessary and unnecessary goods. I can’t plan for my annual vacation. I can’t look forward to my cousin’s wedding in June, which is now postponed to August of 2021. I can’t… I can… I can’t… I can….
These are all imposed restrictions to a former, more optimal life I maybe took for granted. Gratitude is the underlying theme – maybe I was ungrateful… maybe I was grateful… maybe after all this I’ll be more grateful.
Like I said, when I think “quarantine,” I think of a bleak and dire situation. This has not been a good situation – like I said, everyone is experiencing anxiety collectively… and a collective and somewhat abstract grief… and no one wants to “speak too soon.” I’m not much of a prayin’ man… I selfishly hope this grief remains abstract and afar for the time being. I do care for others and want this all to be over immediately as well. At a glance, the recent statistics for “new cases” is showing improvement… though still at over a thousand new cases daily in the United States.
Anyway - in the future, when I recount this experience to the unborn or immature, maybe this will make it clear as they use their imagination to think of what is hopefully then, an alternate reality.