Later on, after getting married, changing careers, owning a business, having a kid, my mom passing away, and life just being thrown at me like playing Asteroids, chaos ensuing around every corner, I found myself getting more done before most people get up for the day. It's been that way for so long that I didn't think I knew how be any other way.
It's not like life just stopped one day. This whole Coronavirus thing crept up like a weird boogyman vapor. I do watch the news. I just don't watch the national news. I stopped that not long after the 2016 election. Don't worry, this actually isn't going to be one of my political rants. I'm just saying, I'm not like the rest of you fighting over CNN/MSNBC vs FOX. I don't watch any of them. I watch my beloved Bill Ritter on the six and eleven o'clock ABC Eyewitness (NY) news. Local with some rest of the world thrown in. And, as my friends know, I mostly just listen, to have my other friend Bill, in the background like we're hanging out. I know what's going on, but I'm no longer a news junkie like I had been in the past. I know "enough".
I heard of Coronavirus but I wasn't paying that much attention. I HAVE SHIT TO DO. I was monumentally busy. I work daily in my store. I have my side business. I am E's Uber driver. I didn't think the virus was a joke, but hell if I thought a virus was going to take over the world. That's what movies and network dramas use for plot lines. What General Hospital uses to kill off a major character during Sweeps Week!
Coincidentally, I hadn't had to go to the city for auditions for E in awhile, yet the first two weeks of March I had to be in NYC for three auditions in Times Square at Nickelodeon for E. THREE TIMES. F me, right? Funny enough (not funny), it seems I'd never taken E to Times Square, in the hundreds of times we'd been to NYC and he was walking around there like a freaking tourist, wanting to look at and touch everything. I practically had to put him on a leash. It was March 9th when I even wrote on Facebook- "I'm in Times Square with a bazillion people, none of which are giving any f*cks about the Coronavirus!" because I thought people were overreacting.
Boy was I wrong. We also weren't getting accurate information, of course. I still never thought school would close. I definitely didn't think my business would be closed as non-essential. I didn't think my husband would have to put himself and by extension, me and E, in danger on the daily, doing grocery shopping and delivery for people who can't or don't want to their their homes to do it themselves.
I tried to look at the bright side at first. I'm not a depressive or negative person. I thought, okay, I'll do stuff. I'll organize. I'll do projects I've been putting off....
Instead, I feel like I'm back to being in that apartment in Hackensack, where I also felt stuck with my feet in quicksand or cement, with a pit in my stomach, wondering what would become of me. Except now I have a husband, a house, a kid, a car lease, a mortgage, a business, and a million other responsibilities. I just can't seem to get much completed. I start things and don't finish. I think about starting things and don't. I'm lucky if I get anything actually accomplished.
I realize that part of it is being in mourning for all E is losing out on. People love to compare tragedy and think they're either making you feel better by saying they, or someone, has it worse. Or trying to snap you out of it by trying to get you to see that other people have it "worse". But we have to be allowed to grieve and mourn our own losses.
I have one kid. I get one chance to live these milestones. He gets one chance. We are ALLOWED TO BE SAD. He's in fifth grade. He's not an academic. Sure, he gets good grades, but he doesn't LIKE academics. He doesn't get excited about learning. He's there for any scraps of fun he can find in it. Socializing. Extra curriculars. This is his last year at his little warm hug of an elementary school before middle school. The fifth graders are the big cheeses, finally getting their special activities. He waited all this time and now all that fun stuff is circling the drain.
He was to be the lead, Aladdin, in the school play. We just got the email yesterday that the play is officially cancelled. I knew deep down that it would be, but there was still a little SHRED of hope. Yesterday, the shred was finally set on fire, ashes buried. That one stung, hard. He had worked so hard. He'd been saying, "hey, I still have to practice my lines..." We'd been putting it off, knowing this day would come, but now it's real and it hurts. We're allowed to mourn that. Just because he's not a senior losing prom or graduation doesn't make it any less shitty for him. We're only up to fifth grade disappointments. That's not his our our fault. It's just what "is".
Of course my heart breaks for everyone losing out. Laura Benanti, the broadway and tv actress, did a beautiful and amazing thing, having kids across the world perform everything they won't get to perform on Twitter for her because of this nightmare. She said to tag her and hashtag #sunshinesongs. I had E do it with one of his Aladdin songs back in his first few days of school being closed because I just knew where this was all going.
One day, like two weeks ago, on the treadmill, I just had a breakdown of sorts. I was watching something on tv- I don't even remember what now, but I just completely lost my mind. I just started sobbing uncontrollably for the unfairness of it all. This was even before people were dying here. Before Bergen County and NYC were the epicenter of death. Before I actually knew people that passed away.
Yes, there are people I knew who have died of this disease. Not people I was close to, but people I knew. And my heart also breaks for their families and friends. I had a crazy scene over here where I tried to be just the vessel as to which to connect the right people as to how someone sick with it would be able to get the right hard-to-get medication. I thought it worked, only to find out that it didn't or didn't get there in time- I don't know- and the person passed away. At first I was thinking, what if I had heard sooner, what if, what if....But there are too many unknowns and it's all just too much to bear.
Again though- we all have to be able to mourn the big and small of this horrible, awful situation. The loss of school, the loss of human interaction, the loss of human life, the loss of milestones, the loss of celebrations, the loss of mourning new lives and proper burials & memorials. The loss of proms, graduations, plays, recitals, competitions, sports, once-in-a-lifetime events. There are things that all mean something to someone and no one's thing means more or less than someone else's.
Remember that line from Ally McBeal that always sticks with me...When Georgia says to Ally- "Why are your problems always so much more important than everyone else's?" and Ally pauses, cocks her head, thinks for a second, and says, "Because they're mine".
I, personally, have found that I have to take this thing day by day. I find that I get really irritated and pissed when I'm talking to people or reading from people that this is going to last for a very long time, blah blah, months, it's going to on for....making it sound practically like a life sentence. Doom and gloom for an undetermined way-too-long amount of time. I CAN'T LIVE THAT WAY. I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm not saying they're right. I'm saying- I. CAN'T. LIVE. LIKE. THAT.
It's like dessert. I eat dinner as a means to dessert. I need to know there's dessert coming. If there's no cake, life isn't worth living. Well, what good is it knowing the projection if this thing sucks giant donkey balls? No, I don't need to live in a Fantasy. However, I don't feel that the average person actually knows much of anything. I'm don't trust that our government knows much of anything. So I definitely don't trust that Joe Schmo down the street knows what's up. I need hope. I need positivity. So stop telling me life as we know it is over. Or you're going to be over- to me. Just don't say anything then, if that's what you think. Keep your negativity to yourself.
I'm going to believe things are going to get better, sooner, rather than later, and I'm going to take it one day at a time. You want to be in my boat or the EverythingIsShitWeAreAllGoingToDie boat? You pick.
PS- I'm using this picture of cake for a few reasons- one, I mentioned dessert. Two, I really miss Caked Up Cafe during this quarantine. Three, maybe I'll try to make a layer cake during this, but I doubt it. Because I can't seem to get anything done.
