Man… this has been a hard post to get going. There’s no good reason for my slacking off here other than just being distracted. Every time I sit to write a post I lose steam after about a paragraph. I sit and reminisce about the days when one could simply walk into any store and buy tp, when one didn’t have to go to several different stores to get ingredients for one recipe, when a cough was just a cough. Remember those days? Yeah, neither do I.

These are interesting times. Every day more businesses I follow on FB (local places I frequent) are announcing their closure for now. Many restaraunts and cafes tried the take away thing but that only seems to last a few days before the businesses surrender and completely shut their doors. It’s heartbreaking to see. One person I know has been busting her ass to get her new business up and running and one week after her grand opening she’s had to close it. Lots of people have had major plans canceled.

What about me? Me, me, me! Well, in all honesty I have it really good compared to many, I’m really fortunate. I’m more struggling in trying to digest what I’m watching others go through and the sudden change in routine. Every single plan I had last week through the summer has been cancelled. Those plans include several circus workshops, dog agility practise, every dog agility competition, and I’m guessing at this point our friend who is supposed to visit us in a little over a month won’t make it. I don’t think he’d want to come at this point considering everything will be closed. The last normal thing in my life was working in the office in city centre and on Friday my boss packed up my work station and drove me to my flat and set my computer up here. I was the last one in my office to go. It was surreal seeing us all disappear from the office over the week. I’m very fortunate to be able to work from home but it was still a little jarring since it made this all even more real.

There’s a few other ways this has impacted me that I wouldn’t have anticipated. I have completely lost faith in humanity. The shelves in the stores are pretty wiped out. The level of self-centerdness has been damn near unbearable. The panic buying, the way people are treating each other, the shady shit people do including buying up needed supplies and then reselling them at stupid prices, the people who don’t take precautions because they’re not in the vulnerable category and don’t seem to care how many people they could spread this to. I hear you “but Lindsey, there are a lot of people out there doing good right now…” We notice people doing good because it’s so damn unusual to see acts of kindness anymore. We shouldn’t be so impressed by this. We should all be acting as part of a community. We’re all stuck together in this life, let’s help each other out. At this point simply not panic buying and going against the grain is an act of kindness, you’re leaving things for others, you’re sharing. That is a very simple, kind and decent thing to do. Sorry, sorry, I know, I’m getting on a soapbox and maybe letting my frustrations get the best of me. I’m just shocked at how unprepared people are in general. I’ve decided to accompany this with another post about being prepared in case it’s of any help to anyone for future emergencies (there will be future emergencies I promise you). You can find that post here https://lindseysgonemad.com/2020/03/22/emergency-preparedness/.

Ok, how about I stop being angry now. I’m struggling to put Facebook away. I know how dumb that sounds but every moment I want to know what is happening with others, if there are new developments in this strange world we’ve landed in, is there anything funny posted, any words of wisdom… honestly, it’s impacting me negatively more than helping me, so I’m going to set a time limit for it on my phone and honour that. The husband completely deleted it from his phone. There are some good things happening at the moment. I have accepted a friend’s challenge to write more. I used to write poetry and short stories all the time as a kid and it’s felt so good to get back to that. When I don’t feel like doing that I can work on posts for my blog, so I’m still writing something at least. I’ve also been reading a lot more… I might run out of books. I’ll just pull out my kindle if that happens and download some, but I do love having the actual book and flipping the pages. Last week I went to the bookstore three times before work just to take in the smell and feel of the bookstore, to relax a bit. I always feel really good in bookstores.

I get out for long walks with Chewbacca if I wake up early enough. The weather has been quite nice lately, so it’s a good opportunity to get a little exercise in for us both. I’ve been naturally waking up between 6:30 and 7:15 (it’s the sun, it’s coming up around 6 now). If I’m not able to get out for the walk by about 7:15 I won’t go for long walks because then I run the chance of the park being more crowded, especially now that most people seem to be out of work or working from home. At the time I go it’s really quite easy to keep distance from others; however, I heard people coughing throughout the park this morning and I’m thinking I need to get up even earlier or quit going. The coughs were on different paths and at least 20 feet away but that’s still too close for me.

This virus seems indiscriminate. Yes healthy and young people stand a better chance for surviving, though there are healthy and young people who have died from it. I have asthma and use my inhaler fairly often lately so I’m trying to keep myself out of the way of this virus as much as I can… people should be doing this anyways, healthy or unhealthy. I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to stay home as much as I am right now, as there are many workers who don’t have that privilege. Those very workers are keeping this world afloat at a possible detriment to their own health. We’re learning who the heroes really are right now. I do still need to take the dogs out or grab things from the corner shop here and there but that’s pretty much the extent of my outings.

Last thoughts on this for now, about what it’s like being here and not in the US during all of this. My husband said something to me the about two weeks ago that really caught me off guard. He said something about really missing Seattle and realizing how much he cares for the people there. Not once has he missed Seattle in the nearly two years we’ve been here. He doesn’t want to move back to Seattle but I still thought it was interesting to hear that and realised that I didn’t feel the same. Over the last week my feelings have caught up with my husband’s. The announcement went out to Americans to either return to the US now or prepare to ride this out in whatever country you’re in. This is our home so of course we’re riding this out here in Scotland, but I think seeing that we can’t return to the US and easily get back here to the UK is really eye opening. For the first time in a while I have started to miss the US, in a different way than before I guess, it’s hard to explain.

Will this change us? Will we come out of this better or worse off? What will humanity learn from this, if anything? I don’t know. I’m hoping I come out of it better off. I’m hoping for a little self-enlightenment, to be a little more reconnected to my creative side, to be more compassionate. I’m a bit of a shut-in anyways, a bit introverted (actually a lot introverted), so in some ways this is forcing me to give in to my more natural desire to be this way. I just wish I wasn’t doing this out of concern for keeping my lungs intact. Stay safe out there, please think about others at this time, be kind, let’s make it through this insanity together. If you’re staying shut-in as well, make it a goal to come out of this with something fun to show for it, whether that be a poem, book, song, a cool craft, learning to draw, or whatever. Geeze, I’m being awfully bossy. Just stay safe, my friends, please please please stay safe.