Coronavirus Changes Everything

So there I was, literally just moments away from leaving my full-time job, when I started to hear more and more talk about this new epidemic called “Coronavirus.” That feels like it was forever ago, but really, it was just three weeks.

It’s incredible how quickly the whole world has changed around us. In just a few weeks, we’ve had school closures, business closures, a near-total shutdown of travel, and massive numbers of cases of infection and increasingly, deaths. And on top of those are the anxiety and uncertainty of being socially isolated and desperately trying not to look at your 401(k) balances if you’re lucky enough to have them and worrying about whether you’ll lose your job. And on top of THAT is the fact that there is no escape at all – nearly every conversation is at least sprinkled with if not totally dominated by discussion of coronavirus and its effects, every scan of social media involves posts on the topic, every time you open your email there’s at least one message with “COVID-19” in the subject line, nearly every daily decision, even what to eat for dinner, often involves at least some acknowledgement of the strange master of our days.

Ever been to NYC? If so, this tweet is jaw-dropping.

Our stories are both the same, and totally different

While all these dynamics are affecting everyone in the country (and probably the world), each community, and each family, experiences pieces of it differently. In some cases, the concerns and anxieties of one family is almost the opposite of others. For example, I have some friends whose professional lives are busier than ever, and they are finding themselves physically and psychologically exhausted by the volume and urgency of their work even in the face of unique and constantly shifting constraints. For others, they are now sitting at home with nothing to do, having lost their jobs. These folks find themselves endlessly restless with nothing but the anxiety of their economic future to occupy their time.

Here in Iowa, our schools are shut down for four weeks (as I write this, we have just started week 2, though week 1 was spring break), and we are “social distancing” with the businesses where people gather closed down but otherwise left to our own devices. We’ve seen a relatively small number of confirmed cases, and much of the state is spread out, so we’re not currently experiencing the threats and the constraints that other communities are. For example, I’m able to go out for a long dog walk every day, and I often don’t see a single other person while I’m out.

I also have only one kid, who is a teenager and mostly able to care for himself. Unlike parents who are frantically trying to “homeschool” and manage daily, Instagram-worthy schedules, I’m deciding how many fights I want to have over videogames, especially when I can’t teach most of the topics covered in high school curriculum. And I’m doing this while the Lumberjack and I are both available virtually full-time since neither of us have to report to a job.

As a people, I think we are all worrying about four main things, yet the configuration of how they play out for each of us is unique (it’s like a pandemic-driven version of the Myers-Briggs):

  • Work: how much, and where, and for how long, and how to do it. For me, my questions about what I want my next work to be, which were already complicated, have now been further scrambled by what this situation means about what options will even be available. Whereas a month ago I was asking whether I want to keep working in the nonprofit sector, I now have to layer on top of that whether there will even be nonprofit leadership roles available, or whether the sector will contract so significantly that the kind of role I might seek will be even more difficult to manage.
  • Finances: how stable are yours, and how stable are those around you, and how should you be managing them. Some people are positioned to help support the economy; others are needing to be supported, and some for the first time, and some in even more desperate ways than ever before. For us, this question is especially complicated, because while we are not in any way desperate and in any other time would find ourselves in the role of supporter rather than supported, the fact that I do not have a full-time job and my husband is self-employed add new uncertainty into the mix.
  • School and/or child care: if you have kids, where would they normally go and where are they going now and how long will that last and how comfortable are you with it, all topped off with the added garnish of how much we as a society love to judge each others’ parenting decisions. For me, the anxious questions in my head are: how much should I force my kid to do “school”? What are other parents doing and how do I line up? Should I make him do other things, like work out or eat three healthy meals or floss his teeth every day? Is it so terrible to let him treat it like summer vacation? Am I being lazy to even think that?
  • Social distancing: what activity is okay and who am I worried about and does that include me? Most of us have at least someone in our family who would fall into a vulnerable population – for me, that’s my parents, who live just across the road from me. They’re super independent and don’t even realize they’re senior citizens (so please don’t tell them!), so it’s not scary, but then I find myself wondering if I should be more worried? Should I offer to run errands for them? If we were to meet up in their garden and start working together (you can easily get six feet of social distance in a garden) would that be okay? How often are trips to the grocery store allowed? Am I weird for not feeling more isolated?

The gift of this time

What I’ve realized, though, is that in my search for a values-driven life, I’m getting the immediate opportunity to make some realignments. My calendar is literally an open book, with hours every day to fill. What do I want to fill them with?

Blix celebrating a narrow win at Life.

Yes…there is plenty of Netflix and Chill on my calendar (we’ve decided to finally watch Brooklyn Nine Nine, and Homeland, which are turning out to complement each other pretty well). But I also have daily opportunities to put my values-driven goals into practice, and to give myself a break on some of my normal anxieties. Should I sit and read another article about the latest press conference? No, I should go walk my dog. Should I spend the next ten minutes re-reviewing my credit card statement? No, I should write a note to my uncle in an assisted living facility. Should I be trying harder to find a job? No, I should make some cookies with my kid.

I’m also getting a great chance to practice more empathy and do my best to meet everyone where they’re at. Everyone has things they are worrying about, they are all different, and sometimes they are literally the opposite. One person is worried about the danger of sending their kid to day care so they can show up for their job at Target; the next is worried about keeping their kid home because they can’t get the services they need from school. One person is busier than ever at their job; another is laid off and doesn’t know if they’ll ever be able to return.

And, while I am generally a person who recognizes all the privilege I have in my life, this is giving me even more opportunity to be grateful. I can say things like “Should I be trying harder to find a job? No” because we have a decent amount of savings that allow us some cushion. I can venture to the grocery store without too much fear because I am healthy, and I don’t have to go very often because we have freezers and pantries full of food. My family is mostly very healthy and almost everyone has a job where social distancing doesn’t threaten our health or livelihood. Grateful, grateful, grateful.

What I hope comes next

I wouldn’t have wished this for a second. This is a very scary experience with an uncertain end, and I still don’t have my mind wrapped around how long we will be living with the effects of this pandemic.

But in this very broken culture we have been living in, where even the music you listen to or the stores you shop at signal divides, I have seen signs of hope. Tragedies tend to bring people together and reveal their true character. And as an eternal idealist, I am keeping my eyes on the places where our best selves are coming through.

One of many COVID-inspired memes.

I see people calling to check on each other and sending notes or texts or emails of encouragement. I hope that continues.

I see people offering what they have – whether it’s N95 masks or toilet paper or delivery services or sewing skills – to help others. I hope that continues.

I see political lines being crossed, even erased, to listen to experts and to do what’s best for people. I hope that continues.

I see bad stuff too, and I know that will continue, because we’re humans and we all do bad stuff sometimes. But my hope is that we remember how strong we are when we work together; how much better life is when you focus on commonalities and not difference; and that we continue to see each other’s humanity and do hard things to make the world better. And that once we do get out of this immediate crisis, we remember that we can keep doing those things, keep behaving that way, even when we’re not staring in the face of an existential threat. That working together to solve problems and meet our needs can keep us moving forward even when our challenges get smaller than a global pandemic.

Let’s do that, shall we?