An Existential Crisis


What does one do when life as you know it comes to a grounding halt? For the past twenty years,  come hell or high water, come national tragedies or natural disasters, come family births or illness, house moves or car breakdowns, life had to go on. My husband and I needed to go to work, the kids needed to go to school, errands needed to be run, drop-offs and pick-ups needed to be coordinated -- all in a frenetic pace that threatened health and sanity. Well, all that changed on March 13th as large portions of the United States took unprecedented steps to contain the spread of Corona virus. Schools are closed for three weeks, employees are directed to work from home, medium to large gatherings are banned and "social distancing" has emerged as the new construct of 2020.

While the quarantine is an inevitable outcome of the mounting hysteria and speculation of the past few days, I don't think we fully understand what it means to be house-bound for extended periods of time. Clearly, we will need more than cartons of toilet paper and bottled water to make sure that we get through this time without killing the people we share our homes with. I have to admit that even for a home body like me, the prospect of this quarantine seems daunting. Punishing as it is, I like my daily schedule. It imposes a sense of order and forces me to get out of my pajamas and interact with people on a daily basis. Given the number of helpful Corona virus quarantine schedules flooding the Internet, many people are craving a structure to be productive during this time. It appears that we have come to rely on our schedules and long list of To-Dos so much that we do not know how to operate without them. Besides being a public health crisis, Corona virus is also posing an existential crisis for our over-scheduled lives.

So, what does one do during such an extraordinary time? To me, it seems as though as long as we stay healthy and fulfill our responsibilities for not spreading the virus, the answer to that question is up to each of us. I have not made a schedule for the day, yet. What I have done is make a list of things that I do not usually do, but should be doing. The items on this list may surprise many, as you are naturally disciplined and can stay focused while balancing the craziness of work, home, and kids. To those, I say, please withhold judgement. Some of us need a national emergency to make lifestyle changes.

I will use this space to share updates on how things are going and I invite you to do the same. In the mean time, stay healthy and wash your hands!









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