My wife and I are compliant. We are social distancing. We bought KN95 masks to wear when shopping. She does not go anywhere except to walk our dogs. I do the store runs, and mind my distances, mask at the ready. We have shoes for inside, and shoes we wear outside. We are doing exactly what we are told to do.
We keep busy. We are retired, but prior to the lockdown, we were active at our local college, taking interesting courses and interacting with other students in various on-campus clubs. Although that has ended, the classes have moved on-line, and we have our classes live using “go to meeting” technology. My wife takes art courses, and has taken over my “man cave” and turned it into a studio. She is creating an impressive portfolio of drawings and paintings. We let our maid service go as part of our “distancing” program, and clean our house every day ourselves. We also are cooking most all of our meals, experimenting with many new dishes. We walk our dogs, sometimes as much as 3X per day, weather permitting. I write on my blog, as I’m doing right now. Our time is well used, considering the circumstances.
Still, we long for actual human interaction. Without personal contact with our families, no restaurants, bars, movie theaters, neighborhood gatherings, and even our church, we feel a personal emptiness. Humans are social animals, and without personal contact, depression results. We just are not built to be islands unto ourselves.
We use social media as a way to connect with others. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are our major source of social interaction. Facebook is for our families and friends, Twitter is for our political rants, and Facebook is becoming more and more politicized too. My wife uses Instagram for her art, and that is how she connects with other artists. None of this is as satisfying as actual human interaction.
All this leads to big questions on our minds. Is what we are doing necessary? Is blowing up our national economy, putting tens of millions of us out of work the right thing to do? Is shutting us down in our houses really going to keep us safer? Is ruining the financial markets, putting many seniors in tenuous financial positions the right thing to do? Is putting small businesses in a position where they will never be able to resuscitate the smart way to go? Is the price we are paying for safety worth the cost? Is the cure worse than the disease? So many questions, so few answers. We pray for resolution, and pray that it happens soon. If that does not happen, we are looking at a very bleak future for America, and for that matter the world. Yes, we are having a real bad case of “Corona Virus Blues”!