I have such mixed feelings about life during the pandemic. The US government has totally botched its handling, and the political atmosphere pushed so many people to respond irresponsibly instead of rising to the occasion. It’s too much to bear. I live with my head in the sand, and I’m ashamed of that.
But it also gives me mental space for a bizarre optimism.
I spent my teenage years as an only child shuffled between households after a divorce. I didn’t go out and party. I stayed in and wrote and made friends online. It was only in college that I dove into socializing in person and only after college that I started traveling—for family, to sci-fi conventions, with work or church for FEMA. It was only after college that I started stacking up roles at church. In 2019, I finally felt like I’d achieved a dynamic balance for my life. Ha.
Everything stopped in March.
No more church, no more cons. Except online, where I was already burned out from suddenly spending all my working hours at a screen instead of in meetings spread across a few acres of buildings. Suddenly, we shut ourselves indoors to draw a line in the disease transmission sand.
And on top of that, my step-sister moved into the house my husband and I were starting to think we’d outgrown.
Things didn’t click into place at once. That’s a huge transition, and a human like me has a lot of background thought processes to plan ahead for the next places to be. But there wasn’t a next place. Just home.
My husband and I were blessed with jobs that survived the transition. My job even adapts well to telework. I’d already had skills for maintaining friendships electronically; what the lockdown brought me was time to respond. I was also blessed with a backlog of hobbies I could do from home: photography of my sister’s cosplays, guitar practice subbing in for playing bass in the church band, a novel to finish re-drafting and revising, and an epic backlog of TV and books to catch up on.
I know I’m getting off easy. I’m trying to focus on all the good things: the creative projects, the way I can support my family’s mental health, the way I now have time to exercise instead of driving here and there and everywhere.
It comes with guilt. There’s so much dark in the world right now, so many injustices that need people to rally against.
Now in September, I feel like I’m getting a grip on it all. I had a couple “new normals” to rotate between, and the ever-present anxiety was starting to ebb.
Until my sister was suddenly called on to student-teach in person. Now, it’s come crashing back. Without our support (and even with it), she needs her friends and social network, but will their irresponsible behaviors put her at risk? What if the schools bring students back weeks from now, and put her at risk? What if she needs our support and brings it back to us? What gives a school a right to expose their staff and students and their staff’s and students’ families to a pandemic we could have staunched in February? What if my mom blames her for the risk and their relationship deteriorates?
I can’t control that.
I can do my part. I can stay in. I can act responsibly.
And I can support my friends and family. I can create entertainment that so many people are using as a lifeline now (even more than before). This is the reality we live in, and I can deal with it the same way I always have: by doing what little I can and making the best of the rest.
Shannon Eichorn is a sci-fi writer and aerospace engineer in Cleveland, Ohio. During the day, she supports aerospace testing but has also written service instructions for jet engines, taught horseback riding at a summer camp, and supported supersonic wind tunnel testing. Find her and her books online at blog.shannoneichorn.com.
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