Day 1 | March 9
I started counting on March 9.
March 8 was the last day I was in a public gathering. I worshipped in the church; I greeted and talked with parents and students from our Chinese school. People packed the hallway and scattered about in the cafeteria, interacting in manners that would stress out the health experts and government officials.
Day 14 | March 22
Towards the end of January, I was ready for a potential lockdown. In a twisted sense, I looked forward to the quarantine. I primarily function out of my house as a homeschooling mom. I have had ten years of dress rehearsals to finally go live with what I do best – staying home. My husband, on the other hand, has a long commute from Long Island to Jersey City. For him to work from home regularly was just too good to be true. Best of all, the clock that ran like a gerbil’s wheel could finally stop once all the activities began to cease. I could finally catch up on kids’ school reports, de-clutter my house, and start many long-awaited renovation projects.
However, I did not see it coming. A demon that I had been freed from came back with a vengeance.
ANXIETY.
It grips your heart, and it tightens your airway. You labor to breathe. Internal organs, one by one, begin to sound an alarm with dulling pains or numbing aches. Loud, boisterous conversations from kids and the deafening sound of leaf blowers and lawnmowers would become overwhelming, aggravating these symptoms. At its worst, you wonder if your heart would stop, and you wonder if a call out to 911 can send an ambulance fast enough.
I just described an episode of Anxiety Attack. All it takes is a trigger.
The trigger was my husband’s sudden illness on March 22 – five days after he started to work from home.
It’s a valley of darkness that I didn’t foresee. Yet, it’s the valley of darkness that God had prepared me for. Here is my FB post if you are interested in reading more about it.
Day 51 | April 29
If we had paid no attention to the sensational headlines and the noisy chatters on social media, no one would have believed in a global pandemic back in March. Many of us were in denial. We were a feisty bunch. Concerned, but feisty.
Towards the end of April, short texts about the passing of friends’ parents and grandparents started to trickle in. Was it a coincidence? I know 9/11 is real because I witnessed two planes crashing into the Twin Towers on live TV. Most New Yorkers know of someone that perished that day. As our mourning friends have to wait for weeks before they could schedule a burial, the reality of the pandemic finally hit home.
Cabin Fever
In an e-mail to friends, I wrote,
“It feels like we are caught in a time warp, trapped in another dimension of space that still does not feel real. Because in my dreams, I often saw people, lots of people, and no one was practicing social-distancing.”
For an introvert, life cannot be any more perfect during the quarantine. I get to decide who I let into my life. I have complete control over my social calendar. It makes any extroverts scratch their heads. “Why is it you don’t miss seeing me?”
But even an introvert is not wired to be isolated. We just last longer than most.
On Day 51, I entertained the idea of asking my husband to pack all of us in the Honda. We would drive to the end of the island and back. No stops along the way because none of the parks and beaches would be open.
On Day 52, I wondered if I could catch a plane to see my family in Texas. Then I imagined a hypothetical encounter.
“Hey, this is my sister visiting from New York,” my brother would probably introduce me to a Chinese Texan this way.
“Oh,…hi.”
The Chinese Texan would take a step back while trying to remain somewhat cordial.
“I got tested for COVID-19, and I am negative. You don’t have to worry.”
The Chinese Texan would chuckle nervously, and we would all be locked into this awkwardness.
Not a good idea.
Dreams
As we find ourselves living in the time warp, a sort of an alternate universe, we still can find familiarity and stability in our dreams during the REM sleep. People say dreams reflect our subconscious thoughts, and they uncover our hidden fears and desires. An article in Psychology Today wrote, “In the era of extreme social distancing, our dreams may serve as a biological signal that we must work hard to maintain our relationship bonds.”
I had a dream that I was in a packed church in Manhattan. I was with a friend that had shut me and many others out of her life. Then I was arrested for violating the social-distancing order.
My 12-year-old daughter, who was thrilled with the stay-at-home order, dreamed of a dog that barged in and trampled all over our house.
My 11-year-old daughter, who used to shower often after swim practices, dreamed of having a bad dandruff problem.
How about the man and boy? They could not tell me a thing about their dreams.
Hobo Fashion
The electric bill and water bill came around the same time. The electric bill shot up sharply while the water bill was down. For a brief moment, I was happy with the lower-than-expected water bill. But very quickly, I realized why and it was…troubling.
“When was the last time you showered?” I often asked.
“I don’t feel dirty,” said all.
I can agree to some extent that a daily shower or bath could be excessive, esp. when we don’t sweat. Without feeling gross or icky, there is little incentive to go through the elaborate motions of self-cleansing.
I have noticed young adults walking around outside in pajama pants. Without the need to impress and assuming they will never run into their Mr. or Mrs. Right…for the practical-minded, changing into another set of clothes does seem unnecessary.
I always change out of my pajamas even when I have no place to go. But it is not the first thing I do in the morning. I roll out of bed between 6 and 7 a.m., and I head straight to Mr. Coffee – my latest purchase after retiring the other sub-par, expensive coffee-making apparatus. Then I give my mouse a jolt to wake up my laptop. Against the impulse to check the latest news, e-mails, or Facebook, I head straight to the Bible. This routine is so strictly enforced and tightly guarded that I fear washing up and changing might derail and distract me from this life-preserving habit.
It happens more often than not that there will be a package sitting on our porch. Then there would be this false sense of urgency to want to bring it in. In that situation, we would often look around and nominate the one that looks the most presentable to fetch the parcel. One time, it just so happened I looked the “best.” I featured a faded, dingy, three-quarter cotton pants and a maternity top that I refused to throw away (because it is so comfy). My unwashed hair was in a messy bun and the thick lenses in plastic frame aged me by twenty years. As soon as I opened the door, I heard my name. My neighbor spotted me from sixty feet away, and my foot was not even out the door! In a panic, I shut the door. Mortified, I ran upstairs to put on something less hobo-ish.
Day 61 | May 9
I hope I never have to go to prison. However, I might have gotten a taste of a life sentence. The monotony seems to shorten our days. Weekdays roll into the weekends, and a week feels like one long day. For many, it is easy to lose track of time as it makes little difference now with no place to go and no appointment to keep. For me, the whole month of April was a blur. Only Easter stood out when my family had the communion in front of a Zoom meeting.
Perhaps it is an act of mercy. If a life sentence can be lived on a fast clock, then the doldrums of such punishment would be more bearable.
What finally slowed down the fast clock for us was the decision to take a Wednesday off to celebrate a child becoming a teen.
Pandemic Birthday “Party”
My older daughter turned thirteen after the curve was flattened and the lockdown continued. Thankfully for an older child, colorful balloons and the typical birthday hoopla have lost its appeal. She made her own birthday plans. She started her day by making a sumptuous breakfast after enlisting the help of her long-standing nemesis called the Younger Sister. (The reason I described it as sumptuous is that they pureed precious fresh strawberries as topping for the pancakes. I would have settled for a store brand syrup.) We then had her first outing to a local bakery for her favorite cake. She had not been in a car for nearly sixty days, and nausea got the best of her as we drove through a long bumpy road while the “essential” roadwork shut down one of the two lanes. The visit to the local bakery opened our eyes to see how the small business has been affected. Only half of the display case was used. Only one teen was working. And she looked miserable. No greetings. No smiles behind her blue mask.
“Do you want your receipt?” Was the only thing she said.
And the two girls spent the rest of the afternoon watching the latest adaptation of “Little Women.” They banned me from the girls-day-in. “Mom, you talk too much.” I did not mind being left alone for two hours.
Day 71 | May 19
Oddly I felt I have emerged a different person. I have a habit of reading my old journal as part of my daily reflection. I realized how uptight and insecure I was, and how much stress I put on myself and how controlling I could be. I agonized over trivial things. I cared too much about what people think.
It is not until I see God’s hands through this extraordinary crisis that I pulled back from over-exerting and over-compensating.
In the movie “The Truman Show,” Christof, played by Ed Harris, had his say over the intensity of a localized, punishing storm that raged against Truman. Truman’s defiance tempted and played to Christof’s anger as he raised the severity of the torrential onslaught until his staff pleaded with him to stop. “Enough! That is enough!” Christof stormed off in anguish as millions of teary viewers froze in shock and disbelief.
That is how I felt when reports of ailing NYC children made headlines, the jobless claims continued to climb, and that the reopening of the country led to more social unrest and hate.
Screen Time All the Time
It was not long ago when our focus was on the adverse effects of the screen time for our children. Experts have warned of its impact on the young, developing brains. Worried and tech-savvy parents set up parental controls. At the same time, some felt the only solution was to keep the kids occupied with an endless array of afterschool activities and programs.
By the first week of March, all of that endeavors took a back seat. Our cruise ship was sinking, and we were all on the survival mode. We had no choice but to jump off the boat so we may shelter at home and so that we may practice social-distancing. We bobbed up and down in the torrents of ocean currents holding onto a plank for our dear life. The plank is our screens.
The protagonist in the best-selling and a blockbuster survival tale, Life of Pi, found his purpose in taming and caring for a tiger stranded on the same boat. That purpose kept him alive, Pi later recalled in a memoir. We don’t have tigers to tame and care, but we have a tiger in the form of our screens that tame and care for our children. In the sea of COVID life, everyone held onto a screen, bobbing up and down in the ocean currents, waiting to get back on a cruise ship. Some looked around and got an idea. They joined their planks and built a raft, and they climbed onto it for a safer ride that we call Zoom. Still, many are disconnected, isolated, and lost, wearily latching onto their single plank for the seemingly interminable journey until they drift off to a different kind of death. Death to zeal in life.
The silence of friends that are in pain during the pandemic is deafening. I can mute the noisy, animated, online chatters, but I can’t seem to bear the weight of silence. Sadness is everywhere. We don’t see sadness because sadness doesn’t make announcements. Profound sadness does not draw attention to itself on social media. Sadness hides, and as soon as you find them, it runs further into the tunnel until you can barely make out even the shadows.
Day “I Stopped Counting”
This novel coronavirus was nowhere as deadly as the bubonic plague of the past centuries. Yet, it stealthily brought the whole world to a near standstill. It instills fears, both rational and irrational, in each one of us at one time or the other. It turns us into schizophrenics as we get spooked by the unseen virus. It makes us paranoid even when we are with our closest of friends. It turns neighbors into snitches.
This virus might be the perfect storm against humanity, but it’s only lethal in how it releases our primal instincts of survival as we become a society that self-destructs. The more we want to control the virus, the more it controls us. The same goes for all things in life. One paradox about God is that while He is in control, He is the least controlling of all.
The late Ravi Zacharias wrote,
“I think the reason we sometimes have the false sense that God is so far away is because that is where we have put him. We have kept him at a distance, and then when we are in need and call on him in prayer, we wonder where he is. He is exactly where we left him.”
He is exactly where we left him.
On the day I stopped counting, I no longer pray for the return to normalcy. Instead, I pray for the quieting of my soul to accept the unacceptable, to seek God, and to know His good, pleasing, and perfect will…even as I kick and scream.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.” (Psalm 91:14-16)