Tag: #coronavirus

  • Covid Guilt: I’m Doing What I Can

    I’m ran the kid through her reading drills, and now she is in her remote class, working on writing words and sentences.

    I guess this is now normal for her. I wonder what she will remember about all of this? At what age will she look back and say, this was a completely messed up time to be alive? I can hear her wonder aloud one day, “How did three people stuck in a tiny apartment in Upper Manhattan survive this? How did we not all go insane?”

    I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not sure if I will ever understand how to answer that.

    The other night the wife asked me if I had an exercise plan. My answer is that I’m not planning on working out until the kid gets back into school, and I’m not going to feel bad about that. I am the primary care giver for the kid; parent, teacher, partner in crime in playing around the apartment. It takes up just about all of my time. To carve out an hour a day, three to four times a week, is just about impossible. And I’m tired of beating myself up over it. I’m putting the kid’s wellbeing first, and that’s good enough.

    None of this is normal, but I keep fooling myself that I should be able to get it all done. Some days I can do it all, but most days I can’t. Just making it to tomorrow, happy and health is a victory.

  • Stay at Home Parent; Gotta Have Goals

    I have been doing the stay at home parent thing since June, which means that I have logged nearly nine months of this. Last night, the wife and I had a conversation about the next six months, and what that means for the kid’s schooling, home life, and our roles in it. The decision we made, even if the kid gets back into school full time, is that I will continue to be a stay at home parent, and not look for a job. Things may change in September, but for now, this will be my role for the family.

    I also know very well that planning in this pandemic is foolish, as there is a very high probability that what we are setting ourselves up for is disappointment. Hoping that the future will be better was the philosophical status quo a year ago, but now that thought seems fraught with disaster. I’m not ready to give up hope just yet, and I really don’t want to set that example for my daughter.

    My grandmother used to always say to us, “You gotta have goals.” I used to think that was something that people in retirement would say, to give their day purpose. Now I see that it is a mantra for mental survival. If you don’t have something to work towards, then it’s hard to get up in the morning.

    The wife will be the one who works, brings in our income, and provides our insurance. I will manage the home, the kid’s schooling, and all the other tasks in our daily life. That’s the deal. We will reexamine this situation when we hit June to make sure it still works for us.

    And there is one other thing; I need to stop calling this the “new normal” and just call it normal.

  • Covid Test Results, And Thinking About Schools

    I got my results yesterday afternoon, and I am negative for Covid. Turns out that I just have a cold. I won’t even get into the fact that I somehow have a cold. How did I get a cold when I am social distanced, wear a mask, and wash my hands all the time? But, whatever.

    With all of this going on, the wife and I started talking about the shit situation we are all in due to Covid. And we are again started talking about sending our kid to school. I agree 100% that remote school is not what is best for the education of children. The kid would be better served in a classroom, with other students and teachers. We are lucky that I can be the dedicated parent to make sure the kid stays on top of her lessons, and also gets an opportunity to explore new subjects. I know that not every family has the luxury that we have.

    Now, I also understand where teachers are coming from. I wouldn’t be comfortable with teaching children without a vaccine, and until I got one, I think I would like to remote teach as well. A teacher’s health is just an important as their students’ wellbeing. There must be some balance.

    I wish the vaccine rollout had been handled better, and I do hope the Biden people do a better job of it. All teachers need to be vaccinated as soon as possible. I also think, and truly hope, that everyone will hold teachers in a higher appreciation, and pay them what they are worth.

    I know we are a long way from being over this disease, but I think we are getting closer to being able to believe that a light in this tunnel may exist.

  • Getting Covid Tested

    A strange thing happened to me late in the morning, yesterday; I felt like I had a cold. I felt fatigued, had a stuffy nose, and there was a scratchy feeling in the back of my throat. I hadn’t felt symptoms like this in over a year, and it really threw me off.

    In the olden days, I would get at least one cold a year, and it usually happened after the kid got sick. The last time I remember feeling sick was around New Year’s 2019/20, and that was from a cold that was going around the office. Since Covid started, and the kid has been out of school, we have adopted a healthy regimen of hand washing, mask wearing, and keeping out distance. What this has produced is an epically long time since anyone has been sick in our home.

    So, as this “cold” feeling kept increasing in me over the course of the day, I was a little dumbfounded how I could be sick, as no one else in our home is. Odds are that it is just a cold, but the reality is that I am the one in the family that runs all of the errands, and as such, if there is a chance that this could be Covid, I should find out as soon as possible, and not endanger anyone else in the neighborhood.

    I had to go get tested.

    Fortunately, there is a City run medical center in our neighborhood, and I headed over for a test. This would be my second time being at this location to get tested. I was pretty surprised that there wasn’t a line; just five of us waiting. Also, having been though before for a test, I was in and out pretty quick. Total time there, maybe fifteen minutes.

    Now, I am in the limbo of waiting for the test result. I actually feel better this morning, but I know if it is Covid, that really doesn’t mean anything. I have to wait, and that does drive me crazy. I can’t run the family errands, and I just have to sit around. I am sure it is nothing, and I am acting out of caution, but I really don’t want to think about if I did get it.

  • A Tie is Worth A Point

    I have just about made it to the weekend. This was a pretty crappy week. No doubt about it.

    Still, I sort of keep going back to the hope, the magical thought that me and my family will get vaccinated and that we will be able to go back to the way things were very soon. That idea of returning to the life that we had in March 2020 is very intriguing, and it is now met with a heightened level of nostalgia that is becomes both sad and wildly unrealistic.

    I went back through my journals, and even looked at the picture on my phone to see what life was like in March 2020. For us, it was awful. The wife and I were still without work, and our bills were getting out of control. What little money we did have was drying up, and we started talking about what options we had to stay in our apartment. It was dark, and it was bleak. The only bright spot was that I got hired on the Friday before the whole world shut down on the following Monday.

    I look around our apartment now, as I type on the couch and the kid sits next to me drawing and singing, and things are… not exactly better, but clearly, things are not worse. The wife is employed at a good job that gives all of us insurance. We are starting to dig ourselves out of the financial hole we created. The kid is in school, albeit remote, but she can read and write now. And we are healthy.

    Can that be counted as a win? In the Premier League, a tie still gets you a point.

    I think we won one point then.