Well… it’s been a minute. Some things have changed and some have not, but I’m back to type another day.
I was laid off from my job in retail buying in August, along with hundreds of other people from my company. I collected my severance and then switched over to unemployment while applying for jobs. My son’s 3rd birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the new year came and went. And 2020 seemed like the year things would come together – who couldn’t like 2020? So even! So pleasing to the eye! Everything’s coming up Milhouse this year, friends! And then?
Well, then it all went to hell.
In January, a friend of mine shared an article on Facebook about a virus causing chaos in China. In retail, we do a lot of direct business with China and get packages overnight all the time for product approvals. She expressed concern with opening packages knowing there was a new virus, and I fought my inner OCD demons and forced myself to say: that’s so silly. Nothing is going to stay alive on a package! I mentioned it to my husband and he shrugged it off. I was secretly glad I wasn’t opening packages anymore.
By February we knew that this was more than we’d expected. It was the last “normal” month, but we didn’t know that then. My mind was completely elsewhere, dealing with some complicated and disheartening news, applying for jobs, redecorating our bathroom, and chasing my little boy around our house as his winter-induced Space Madness reached peak levels.
Winter got us all like…
On March 4, I didn’t buy Clorox wipes or toilet paper at Costco. There had begun to be runs on these items, and I thought: maybe I should? I was victorious over the voice in my head that makes me overbuy cleaning items (even on normal occasions) and put my 6-pack of Clorox wipes back on the shelf. On March 6, the wipes were gone when I went back with my sister. On March 8, we skipped a family trip to the zoo. It was the first beautiful day of False Spring and half of the city of Chicago was headed to the zoo, which seemed like exactly the wrong idea for avoiding this weird new illness. I felt a little high-strung for not attending – like maybe I was overreacting – but my husband understood and we stayed home. On March 9, it rained all damn day. It was cold and wet and miserable – basically the perfect time to NOT interact with other humans. And that night I hit grocery shopping hard. Again, I felt a little crazy pushing my completely-full shopping cart around while people just grabbed a couple of items and gave me weird looks. Even by then, there were no cleaning products to be had. I grabbed the last 2 bottles of hand soap from the shelf. There was very little pasta or beans. Shit was getting real and weird. Real weird. I packed up my $300 grocery haul in the back of my car in the rain aaaaand my trunk wouldn’t latch. Damn it. I struggled with it both inside and outside the car while my lower half got completely soaked. I only had a quarter tank of gas but didn’t want to stop on the way home because I was tired and overwhelmed and freakin’ wet. I can get gas another time, I told myself.
Well friends, I haven’t left my property since that night – with the exception of a Walmart grocery pickup the next week that I didn’t leave my car for, and a bi-weekly start and drive to keep my car alive. I still haven’t gotten gas. And that’s where we are now. Hanging on to whatever shreds of sanity I have left and blogging again. OH – and Netflixing and online shopping. More on that later, guyzz!