Week 8 or is it 9?

We were watching the school districts update on home schooling expectations and the assistant superintendent said that school has been closed for 8 weeks, are not opening for the remainder of the school year, and that they may or may not open in the fall, but they definitely will have a plan, a backup plan, and a contingency plan.
I knew it had been a while, but I thought it was like 6 weeks or 10 weeks. I have lost track of time. Everyday is just another day. Somedays I shower; somedays I don't. Most days I exercise, meditate and have at least one internal melt down.
I have largely lost patience with the small child on more than one occasion.
I get that things for her are hard. School through a screen sort of sucks. Log into a Google page, watch some videos, do some worksheets, rinse, wash repeat. Oh and the expectations keep changing. At first it was just a few review things, then it was class meetings and daily review work, now there are daily zoom classes, and new material. Virtual playdates in Roblox and Zoom gymnastics also sort of suck. She is not exactly anxiety free, imbued with a strong internal sense of self, an overpowering urge to read, or super amounts of focus. She is an energetic, extroverted nine year old with a strong need to control things and a strong need for external attention.
I am an introverted, emotionally dead, ball of anxiety with a surplus of focus, who has spent years working through a screen. Unfortunately, I also have a bad habit of procrastinating which does not set a good example for the child.
The better half's job has also been getting more and more demanding, so she has less time and energy for child as well....
It is basically a spiraling mess. Child knows we are distracted and have to get things done. She either demands help on everything, avoids work by doing the absolute easiest things for which she can get credit, yells and pouts when things are hard and we try to help, or she hides out in her room playing Roblox and watching TikTok. She avoids messaging friends who do not play the games she likes on Roblox, because making small talk and expressing interest in others is hard when you spend most of the time worrying about what your friends are thinking of you.
It not only child that is spiraling. My tolerance for anything has worn very thin. I have to censor every e-mail I send and count to ten before responding to most questions....
Spending 24/7 in the same 1500 square foot house is not always good for an introvert. Walks through a deserted neighborhood wearing a homemade mask and avoiding the few people you do see hiding behind masks on is not exactly rejuvenating....

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is always a slightly complicated holiday. We all have complicated relationships with out parents.

The quarantine makes it more complicated.

Bug did many nice things for H today. She made a cake and followed an actual recipe. It turned out a bit Nailed It. She also made a frozen yoghurt root beer float and planned a girl's night sleep over. It was a nice break in the storm. But is only a break in the storm; Monday will bring new battles....

For H things were a bit more complicated. Her mother is in the final stages of dementia and just stares at the walls. H not been able to see her in weeks and her nursing home has an active COVID outbreak. At least in the past we could stop by, deliver a card, brush her hair, and say hi.

For all the mothers out their keep on fighting the fight; we all need you whether we admit it or not.

Negative

I got the COVID antibody test back and it was negative. I have not been exposed, as far as the test can tell, to the virus.

The results do come with a very long list of warnings. Like that it can take up to 5 days post exposure for antibodies to show up in the test. That is not a big deal for me personally since I've spent most of the last month more than six feet away from pretty much everything....

While I though that a positive result may have made me feel better, after reading the caveats that come with the test I'm pretty sure I would have spiraled. It doesn't mean that you are immune; it just indicates that you have been exposed. I would have spent the next two weeks waiting for the worst....

Now I'm just back at my baseline state of perpetual low grade fear.

Quarantine Week ?

My mood lately has been generally less bleak with bouts of extremely bleak and extremely anxious.

The news about not reopening schools was, while not unexpected, still hard to take. The kid misses seeing her peeps and, despite her protestations, likes the structure and challenges school presents. We like, despite loving her deeply, not having to manage her full time while also getting our own jobs done.

The school announcement also made it clear that summer vacation plans are in jeopardy.

Will there be summer camps? The kid is desperately looking forward to spending a week doing gymnastics at overnight camp and always looks forwards to her two weeks of farm adventures.

Will Santa's Village, the AMC huts, or any campgrounds open? Will they lift restrictions on trail use? Will mountain biking clubs start up trips again? Will kayaking trips get scheduled?

The curve will come down, but when and what will it take for things to restart? Maybe kayaking with close friends who you can be certain are not carriers will be OK since kayaking is mostly socially distant, except in emergencies. Maybe beaches will stay closed?

Maybe summer will be fine and schools will start up in the fall and things will go back to mostly normal with occasional quarantines and official contact tracing as opposed to the sorts that Google and Apple already do....

Maybe the recent studies that are showing that the infection rate is way higher than expected, and therefore the mortality rate is way lower than expected, will turn out to be true. Couple that with the studies showing that people are showing some sort of lasting immunity means that herd immunity is closer than we think. Then all will be fine.

Maybe of course they are bunk since the tests are not reliable. Or maybe it does not matter what the mortality rate is since it does make a decent number of people very, very sick while leaving way more  people to be Typhoid Mary.

I also read an article saying that the most difficult thing about treating this thing is that by the time most people show up in the hospital they are in critical condition without even knowing it. The O2 levels are so depleted and their lungs so clogged that they should be very sick, but because of how the virus does its damage the patient's body is not reacting in the expected ways. Apparently we feel short of breath when too much CO2 builds up in our blood, not when the O2 gets low and COVID allows your lungs to shed CO2 just fine while blocking the O2 from getting into the blood stream.

Super fun time there for a hypochondriac. Now I think I am likely sitting on deaths door with no way to know. I did do a very hard interval ride on the trainer after reading that article just to prove that I could. The fact that I felt tired and a little high afterwards was worrying, but some water and TV sorted that out. I also did a fairly strenuous walk the following day and my VO2 Max is improving, so that calmed my nerves a bit.

And then night time comes and the monsters in the closet come out....

The most stressful thing I've done in weeks was today. I actually ventured out of the house to see my doctor. It was a routine check-up that was scheduled months ago - and that I had rescheduled once already - and was seriously planning on rescheduling again. H said getting out would do me some good.... I'm not convinced she was right, but I did go.... I brought plenty of disinfectant and wore a face mask when outside of the car. Other than the office staff, I was never within six feet of anyone. The office staff all wore masks - as did I - and reminded me that they only see one patient at a time, wipe down everything between visits, and do not see anyone with any symptoms.... Made me feel better at the time. Sitting here typing this now, I'm not so sure it really helped that much.

I feel like the two week clock is completely reset.

Anyway, he said my lungs sounded good. My blood pressure was fine. My temp was normal. I need to lose 5-10 lbs. He was glad to hear that quarantining and general anxiety had upped my exercise routine although he wished that I was doing more exercise for less crazy reasons....

He also had me take an anti-body test to see if I have had the dreaded COVID. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Do I want to know I've been exposed and likely recovered? I'm not sure if that would make feel better or worse. Logically, it should make me feel better knowing that I'm unlikely to get sick from this thing. However, it is likely to just make me anxious because I know I've been exposed and will be waiting to get sick. Or what happens if I test negative? Then I have to continue living in fear of getting it and possibly being one of the unlucky ones.... Although, in general I do tend to only get minor symptoms from colds, so I probably do have to worry too much.

Yes we are the lucky ones with homes, secure jobs that afford us the luxury of food delivery, and good health insurance and good health. Still we are not doing great.... The kid nearly missed a dance class and an online meeting because the adults spaced on time. It is getting harder and harder to remember what day of the week it is. The kid spends too much time in front of a screen before we notice and then we overcorrect.

Today the kid did an awesome job getting her shit done with minimal adult supervision because I was trying not to have an anxiety attack while driving to the doctor's office and H had full day of meetings. Then, because we all spent all of our collective emotional energy in the morning, bed time was a disaster.

We are the lucky ones. Pray for the ones who are not as lucky....

Quarantine Week 4+

Last week was the roughest yet.
Somehow I keep thinking I will slip into a routine and adjust to the new normal. It is not true.
Thursday and Friday were black days. I was angry and on edge both days for no particular reason. I couldn't even find my way to get some movement. I was actually too angry, or craving control, to allow myself to exercise. The stairs pissed me off; the thought of sitting on the damn stationery bike with barely working gears disgusted me; walking around our deserted neighborhood wearing a mask like it was the god damn zombie apocalypse depressed me.
H had spent the week stressing about getting groceries. We finally got a curbside pick-up scheduled for Sunday, but it was curbside and we needed to make sure we stocked up enough for two weeks. There were times I just didn't care if we even had food; I just wanted to stop hearing about getting food. It probably didn't help that we were digging into the left over food in the back of the freezer for dinners...
My work sucked. I was spending more time fixing a tiny bug in an obsolete installer and answering inane e-mails than I was getting new work done. That was in the small bursts of time I had to actually work between H's meetings, Bug's incessant need for attention, and the less than occasional flare ups.
H is still trying to find her legs doing her job remotely. Her job really does not lend itself to being "remote". There are privacy issues; privacy and internet are oxymorons. There is managing parents expectations when every school district is doing something different, there is no central leadership, and no end date in site.
Bug is actually starting to adjust to home schooling, but it is still a struggle for her. She is not a sit quietly and do work person. She is move around and do stuff person. She is capable of great things but like most people would rather not paddle up stream into the wind without knowing there is a payoff. She misses her friends even though she talks to them and virtually plays with them as much as possible. She gets too much screen time and rebels at our attempts to restrict her and get her to do things IRL. She does not get enough space to make mistakes without us being around to notice and, without us, with the best intentions, trying to use them as teaching moments.
The weekend was better. I did actually leave to house for walks. It was depressing, but the sun was nice.
Getting food was strange. All the information on the available says food is safe, but we still spent an inordinate amount of effort decontaminating it. Having some more food in the house is nice.
This week has not been much better. The rain on Monday was depressing and work was interminable. Then we found out that our early summer camping destination was postponing registrations again. Bug's summer camps sent out notices about how they are hoping to still run programs, but are putting all sorts of restrictions in place.
Tuesday I forced myself on the bike which was the right thing to do. I at least slept better.
In short, the longer this drags on, the more it is grating on me. Yet there is no end in site. Maybe we can stop being trapped in the house before June, but all models point to a repeat lock down in the Fall. In between, there is still no telling who is carrying the apocalypse and we'll get to witness the devastation our months of lock down has wrought.
Still we soldier on....