It's been 300 and some days before Coronavirus took over our lives. I remember the day it happened because it was Friday the 13th. It was March 13th and it also, happened to be my 13th wedding anniversary. Lots of 13's, did I cause a global pandemic?
Well, I didn't but I sure remember the day. A national health emergency was declared. School announced it was closing immediately and lastly, I remember being in an Lyft, scared as could be, going to my 13th wedding anniversary dinner at the Nomad Hotel in Downtown LA. It was supposed to be glorious but it was riddled with fear. No one knew what this virus was or how it spread and I was going Downtown where tons of people reside... where any one of them could give me this mysterious disease?!
Luck was not on my side that day. As I am riding in the Lyft I get a call from my employer telling me they were going a different direction with the job I had and they no longer need my freelance services. Yada, yada. For a person who hadn't spoken more than 5 words to me (I guess that was a sign in hindsight of impending doom) in the last two weeks, he sure went on and on and on this day of letting me go. As he is telling me about his shopping habits in Malibu I kept asking myself, why is he trying to have this long catch up conversation with me when in all likelihood I will never speak to him again?
It was a weird day, full of weird events. We are almost to the year mark. Life has definitely changed. We work from home, we school from home, we order groceries, delivered to our houses, we don't see family, we don't eat inside restaurants, we stick to outdoor activities and we wear masks, sometime double. The list of things we can and cannot do are endless in this new pandemic world.
Everyone wants this to be over but it's lingering... it's sort of like we are in the movie Ground Hog's Day, remember the one with Bill Murray? You wake up and it's the same day over and over. We are Bill Murray, waiting for the alarm to ring so we can move onto the day where there is no Covid. If history has taught us anything we are one year into a 2 year pandemic. Back in 1918, the Spanish Flu struck and it lasted two years and then they went directly into the Roaring 20's. I can see why. For someone who had a drink occasionally, I find myself with a mini bar in my kitchen ready to whip up a tiki drink for a particularly long week. Uncertainty makes a person drink, me thinks.
Living in a big city you can't help but know there is a pandemic. People in Los Angeles are now accustomed to wearing masks everywhere and mommy bloggers write about how they never get out of the house anymore. I see on Facebook friends in small towns with no masks carrying on with their dinners with friends and their trips to DisneyWorld. I guess the pandemic is over for them? Then you ask yourself when it will be over for you? The answer feels like never.
Deep down, you know if no one is following the rules the beast of the virus will try to fight its way back. But who knows? Maybe I am wrong? Vaccinations have started maybe people are carrying on with life because those are coming? Or maybe they just don't care. Between the 500,000 death toll and the last 4 years I am beginning to think a ton of people just don't care anymore. A half a million dead, that's a lot, right? Just the flu they say, just the flu.
Facts are a thing of the past. It's hard to believe that wearing a mask has become some kind of political statement but it has here. Just another way, the government is stripping the rights of the people they say. Sometimes I feel like I am in the movie BIG with Tom Hanks, the scene where he is in the big toy meeting with top toy executives and he is playing with what is supposed to be the most awesome toy invention on earth and he shakes his his and he says "I don't get it?" That's me these days. I don't get what is going on. Are we becoming the movie "Walle?"
Speaking of movies. I miss them and I miss working on them. Theaters are still closed in LA. The state of New York decided they will reopen movie theaters with restrictions in two weeks. So that is encouraging (I think?). Now everyone wants to know when Los Angeles theaters will reopen and when. But no one has an answer. Just like no one has an answer for when Disneyland will open. It's all just guesses as the government rushes to vaccinate 323 million people.
So here we are on day 300 and something. We can only move forward. Who knows what tomorrow brings but we wait and we look for a return to normal. I am just wondering if we will recognize normal once it returns. So much has changed, we might be surprised what is next after all of this.
Who would have thought a global pandemic? Not me. But here we are.
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