Look for the good
I took the boys for a walk in the stroller yesterday. We passed by a local park, and while there were a handful of people (individuals or groups of two) on the walking path, the playground itself was empty, and there was less traffic on the road.
Personally, I don’t know anyone, or know anyone who knows anyone (and has informed me of the fact) who has tested positive for COVID-19.
Our governor is standing out as one of the government officials handing a pandemic the best anywhere, a refreshing change for a Kentucky that has been represented on the national level primarily by Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, and Matt Bevin in recent (and less-recent) years.
I have a son who, by virtue of congenital heart disease, is at high risk for complications from this disease, should he catch it, but nobody in my family has even the mildest cough or any noticeable fever.
My father-in-law, who I would have expected to be the last person in the world to buy in to any need for social distancing and who is just about the definition of high-risk, has only come to our house once since this all started, and that was to drop off doughnuts and not get within six feet of anybody. He’s going to work sometimes, but his office is essentially abandoned anyway.
Though I got laid off right before all this started, and my wife is essentially out of a job as well, we’re running financially acceptably for now and should be able to last any extended quarantine without too big a disaster. We have internet, TV (we haven’t even cut the cord!), board games, cards, and books. The kids are healthy, the twins don’t even realize anything has changed beyond “mom’s home a lot more,” and (this is more for my wife’s benefit than mine, but heck, if she’s happy I’m happy), The Masked Singer is on tonight.
There’s a lot of bad right now. This disease is running wild through a good chunk of the world, hospitals are nearing or at capacity, people are dying, and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. Our president could be handling things worse, but only if he went around licking everybody, and despite that, his approval numbers are actually reaching term-highs. Congress finally agreed on a stimulus package, of which the people who need the most appear to actually be getting the least. Rich old people on cable news — the kind of people who have so much money they could stay inside for the rest of their long, annoying lives and never have to touch another person — are advocating for the sacrifice of our elderly, our infirm, and a small percentage of the rest of us in order to revive an economy that, let’s be honest here, wasn’t doing shit for the vast majority of us even when it was chugging right along.
It’s very easy to get bogged down by how much bad is around us. That’s true all the time, but it’s even truer right now. I’ve handled most of the COVID-19 concerns emotionally pretty well, but the talk over the last 48 hours or so about how we have to “reopen” the economy (as though it’s just a door), and some people will just have to be chosen to be thrown into the volcano for the sake of the almighty dollar, has really stressed me. There is no one right way to handle a pandemic, especially once we’re in the middle of it, but we as a country appear to be constantly landing on a definite wrong way.
You’re likely to feel overwhelmed at some point during this, if you haven’t already. And if you have already, you’re likely to feel that way again. This is advice I generally don’t care for in everyday life (telling me “I have my health” when I’m at my most depressed is utterly unhelpful), but in situations like this, it’s crucial to look to the good. There’s a lot of bad, but there is a surprising amount of good, too.