Something evil this way came on the heels of the Ides of March
By Patti Pietschmann
Was it Ides of March? On March 19 living as we knew it changed. It was my birthday. Just a few days before my state issued at stay at home order. All but essential businesses were shut down.
I was supposed to go to dinner with my husband Richard and a friend to celebrate my birthday. But that didn’t happen. We dutifully stayed home. Richard did his best to make it special. It wasn’t easy.
Nor has life been easy in the now past, almost five, months. It’s difficult not only to cope with the monotony and new norm but to handle hearing about all the deaths and sickness in the world.
We no longer go grocery shopping. Instead we order on line and pickup curbside. We rarely get everything we ordered. It’s like a surprise when we get home to see what the store substituted or what was unavailable.
I can’t go to my gym, get my nails or hair done or have much-needed massages like I was doing before the pandemic hit. We can’t see friends or family who don’t live with us. We wear masks and social distance when we go for walks or rare shopping excursion. Occasionally we chance it and shop quickly in Trader Joe’s or even the 99 Cent Store. But I always worry and we wipe everything down and even take off our clothes when we get home and toss them in the wash.
We can’t even go for regular medical checkups or for that matter get elective surgery one of us needs.
No teeth cleaning for us, either, I’m too unsure.
Dealing with it but not well
It’s nearly August 2020 as I write this and the US is no where it should be in fighting Covid19. Tests are hard to get and results for us hoi polloi take long. We can’t go to our Maui condo because it’s closed. When it reopens we’ll have to quarantine for 14-days in the unit and not go out even for a walk. No fun or reason to go.
We’re lucky that we are both freelancers used to working from home. So that part isn’t much different. However my specialty is cruise/travel writing and of course I can’t do either right now.
One day leads into another. They are all the same. I keep busy writing my Internet blogs and going on social media to keep the boredom at bay.
We also swim in our pool, take hikes and workout in our home gym.
The days often go by fast.
Side effects
Some of the side effects from isolating are memory losses and lack of concentration. I’ve always read voraciously but now I have to reread a page and even then I forget where I was. The same for TV. We watch a show and after I can’t recall one thing about the program. I was blessed with a great memory until the pandemic.
I cry. I’m sad. Depression is new to me and I don’t much care for it. But I realize I’m not alone. Millions of other people are going through these same emotions. And if you’re one of them reading this, I wish you all the best and that you be safe and well.
The Ides of March
The Ides of March (/aɪdz/; Latin: Idus Martiae, Late Latin: Idus Martii)[1] is the 74th day in the Roman calendar that corresponds to 15 March. It was marked by several religious observances and was notable for the Romans as a deadline for settling debts.[2] In 44 BCE, it became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar which made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman history.
