200 Days

Angela & our 200 Days of Distancing pie

Two hundred days ago was a Saturday. It was our very first day of The Distancing. We started a jigsaw puzzle. We assessed our grocery situation. We called our parents and texted our friends. We watched the first Fast and Furious movie. That seems like a lifetime ago. And yet I remember it so very clearly. 

In the past 200 days we've lost 200,000 Americans to this virus. To COVID-19. That terrifies me. And so I stay at home. I read the news day and night. I watch funny shows to dull that fear. I bake. I cook. I eat cheese and crackers for Sunday dinner. I cry. I rage. I take pictures. I write on my laptop, in a journal, on Instagram. 

We've experienced the start of three seasons during Safer At Home. Spring, summer, and today, fall. When Angela said last night that today is the first day of fall I replied, RUDE. And that's my general mood. I have friends and family who finished their distancing months ago, tens of thousands deaths ago. I try to remind myself I cannot control that. What I can control is my household, my environment, my actions, myself. 

So much has changed in the past 200 days. We moved. We left the house we'd called home for 12 years and bought a place to call our own for hopefully as long and beyond. We've lost people we love. My hair is so long. Angela's might be longer. We've grieved lost vacations, lost opportunities, and lost time with people, maybe the worst part of all of this. We cannot get that time back. 

Angela and I often talk about how this period has been a blessing to us and some of our family in so many ways. We firmly believe we would not have this house if COVID hadn't happened. We know people who would not have life changing opportunities if not for this pandemic. Our lives would have taken a very different path. But that path would have led us to Alaska and Vancouver and making a movie. A MOVIE. Instead we now own a swimming pool and luxuriate in central air conditioning while celebrating a script of mine winning a writing contest. Different timelines for sure. Better? Worse? We can't dwell on that too much. There's too much heartache. 

Two hundred days ago my toes were painted bright pink. I had a week-old pedicure. Today my toes are the color I was born with and they need their bi-monthly trim. I miss the pedicures. I miss the pampering. I miss the ladies who smiled when we walked in and always asked how our dad was. But when I took off that pink polish at the end of March I noticed my nails were slightly yellow underneath and had some weird ridges. Today? Today my nails are not at all yellow and they are perfectly formed as my toenails should be. They needed the time to breath after 14+ years of never having seen the light of day except for a few minutes between polish changes. Isn't it interesting what 200 days can teach us. 

In the last 200 days I've grown a tomato plant and eaten more tomatoes than I probably have in the past two years. Angela had never willingly eaten tomatoes before this. Now she requests bruschetta when we have extras. We learned to make our own pizza dough for a fraction of the price we used to pay for ready made pies elsewhere. I definitely never would have done that in the other timeline.

I've done almost 200 days of Spanish lessons, I've taken several photography classes, I've done a daily devotional and I've completed almost 200 daily crosswords from the LA Times. All things I likely would have never attempted or completed if not for the Distancing. 

The Distancing introduced us to Zoom game nights which I hope to continue with our friends and family across the country even when we can travel again. The Distancing has reintroduced us to people who we now chat with regularly who we hadn't spent time with regularly in decades. For that, I can never not be grateful. But the Distancing has stopped us from celebrating birthdays and births and lazy July days with those we love. The Distancing has instilled something in me that is not new but it certainly is distinct.

I live life constantly in fear. I know all of us do. Even if we pretend we don't. We fear aging. We fear losing people. We fear failure. We fear they'll be out of guac at Chipotle. Three hundred days ago I feared catching a cold or the flu but I mitigated the exposure by justifying I'd get over it. As someone with an autoimmune disease I have always been extremely susceptible to illness. I accept that even though I fear it and hate it. When I worked and/or volunteered in places where germs spread readily (i.e., schools or churches) I used hand sanitizer more than anyone should. And I accepted my fate that I'd likely end the Book Fair or the fall event with a cold. More often than not I'd get off an airplane with a head cold. Christmas vacation wasn't Christmas vacation without some form of sickness. I've played golf in the middle of August with a sinus infection. It's just my lot in life. There is so much worse I could have to deal with. But this...this time...it's different.

Two hundred days of being at home. Well, at two homes. We managed a safe move and for that I'll always be impressed and happily surprised. Two hundred days of mounting death tolls. Two hundred thousand souls we pray for and millions more left behind we grieve with. Two hundred days of making silly baking shows that bring us as much laughter as we hope that do our friends. Two hundred days of learning new words and swearing when we don't know old ones over the crossword with my parents on FaceTime. Two hundred days of opening our phones in the morning fearful of what the day might possibly bring next. Two hundred days of jigsaw puzzles and podcasts and crying for no reason and crying for every reason and not sleeping and sleeping in too late and no one even noticing because there are no longer time cards. Two hundred days of wondering if we could just go back and do it all over again, would we? Because then these two hundred days of life would vanish. And they haven't been all terrible. We laugh through the tears eventually. We order Twizzlers from Instacart. We remember when we couldn't buy fresh fruit and we couldn't get grocery deliveries or Advil from Target and we think about the fear we felt then we with a sense of nostalgia. And then we wish for that naive nostalgia because we wonder if tomorrow will really be worse. And in a way, it will be. We know more. And that's good and bad. 

My prayer is that in 200 more days life is drastically different. And at the same time I hope it's somewhat the same. That's the joy of being human isn't it? We yearn for comfort and we long for adventure. We can't have both. But we can. 

Two hundred days. A lifetime in the blink of an eye.