Today is the 2 week mark for the Stay At Home (Shelter In Place) act. It was announced by President Trump that the nation will be under a Stay At Home Policy until May-1 and it looks like the cities of the Bay Area signed an agreement for the same date. While some things are definitely different in my life now and I'm not all that happy about certain changes, I am not upset; I am not depressed; I do not see everything as gloom and doom; ad I do not think everything the world is bad right now. Yet, it seems to be all I hear in texts, direct messages, and on social media lately. I do believe that a lot of my life situations have led me to be able to deal with these sorts of things.
I've moved around a lot. In some places I have had no friends. It took me 3 years of living in California to get true friends and hangout with people in social setting. I currently live on the opposite side of the country from my family. I have watched people come and go in my life as they move on to other opportunities. This social distancing may be more by law than by choice, but it's the same result for me - being away or feeling socially isolated and/or unable to really interact with people face-to-face.
Financial hard times and having to be careful how I spend money is also not new to me. Been there, done that. What college kid hasn't? And then the years after college!
At a young age I had to learn how to occupy myself in a household with a single parent who worked full time and eventually an older sibling who didn't want their kid-sister around. My mom would always tell me how important it was for me to learn how to be content with myself and know how to entertain myself. I had no idea until I was an adult how important that lesson was. I truly believe that being bored is immature. I expect that from a child. I don't see how adults cannot occupy themselves and to expect others to is a childish belief.
Staying in for long periods of time or not being able to go out with people all the time is also not new to me. I find it important at least twice a year to spend a large amount of time to improve upon myself and that means not being a social butterfly during those times. Whether it's cleaning out my house (like Spring cleaning) or working on flexibility and self-reflection, I find it important to get in touch with myself annually and make sure I'm achieving what I need to to be the best I can be.
As far as loss, I have had loss. I have watched people go through the final phases of their life and I have personally experienced several health scares. I know what people are going through with all of these health issues and losing loved ones. COVID-19 didn't have to spread for me to have to deal with that.
So, perhaps, I am a better equipped for this new lifestyle we are being asked to live than most. However, at most people have been cooped up for 2 weeks, but everyone is acting like it's been 2 years and I'm over the dramatization of it all. Dare I say: Grow up!
Okay, my rant is over. I promise to stop going on about the negativity. All I am doing is feeding into what other negative people are breathing out. As I start to ignore and fade out others who are only focused on the gloom & doom mindset, I will start to bring about more positivity to my life.
On a brighter note: I started to experiment with cut creases again today and using liner in a different way than the norm. I haven't really done this since......WonderCon 2018? Or was it 2017? It's been years, anyway. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than I expected and I'll only get better as I keep working on it and trying to improve.
Lime juice was needed for cooking and thus I had to venture out to the grocery store today. I went to the Safeway in Clayton and their shelves were nicely stocked. The only completely empty aisle was the paper goods - yeah, still 100% out of paper towels and toilet paper - and anything with bleach was gone. I was curious if other Safeways were starting to look normal again, or if this particular location wasn't shopped at as much. I didn't venture farther though. As the virus continues to spread, I think it is more important than ever to limit public areas. I'm actually surprised that grocery stores are not forcing people to adhere to a limited shopper total. I'm not sure how the law can be fine with huge crowds in there and yet other places you can't.
As I have at least another month of being at home, my posts here on this blog may lessen to only every 2-3 days. I am finding that as I am working on other things in life I do not have time to produce more than 1 blog entry a day and I'd like to start working on other articles and projects as well. I will still keep up-to-date with my journey through this Stay At Home policy.
Besides what was already mentioned:
Ford has announced they will start to make ventilators to help hospitals.
Airlines will receive 25 million in bailouts as long as furlough employees through September 30th.
More cities are lobbying for unused schools to be turned into COVID-19 centers.
Russia goes under strict lockdown.
The UK is nearing 2,000 deaths with a current total of 1,786.
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