Thursday, March 12, 2020: Not the first I’d heard of Covid-19, but certainly when it was clear that it hadn’t been contained. It was spreading, a lot, and there were rumors of things shutting down. Two days after my birthday. In retrospect I’m glad I was able to celebrate that before all this.
Friday, March 13, 2020: Verified rumors that things would very likely be shutting down. It started to become more real, but only just. I make the decision to start posting my novel, the Law of the Prince Charming. I mean if people are going to be stuck inside anyway …
Saturday, March 14, 2020: Still business as usual for me. Had my riding lesson at the barn, it went well. Went out to lunch for Pie Day at the local Your Pie. It was delicious, there were lots of people there. After lunch made a peanut butter pie and went to Pie Day at the barn as is tradition. We ate pie, and chatted. Virginia Tech had extended Spring Break by a week and was moving all classes to online for the rest of the school year. That’s the point at which it became real to me. Tech doesn’t close. I went there, and slugged to school through snow and storms and everything else. Tech doesn’t close. But it had. That’s the moment when this became real to me.
Sunday, March 15, 2020: The people across the street have a moving van. Possibly a Tech student decided to go home after the college made it’s changes. The hubby and I go to BDubs for dinner. We want to continue to support businesses if the college kids are going to leave town. There are a decent number of people there. Service is great, food is great, we take home leftovers.
Monday, March 16, 2020: Public schools are closed. Assemblies of more than 100 people are banned. There are other things. I’m questioned on why I’m giving my book away for free. An acquaintance is pissed off that we simply “gave up” our right to assembly. I wonder what they expected people to do? Riot in the streets? I go home after work and cry for a half hour and then nap for an hour. Then I get things done. I’m going to keep to my writing schedule, no reason to not. Ireland closed all bars the day before St. Patrick’s Day.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020: Our feed room a the barn is stuffed full. Concerns about a possible hoarding of horse feed, or a lack of supply at some point. My manager at the barn stays home to take care of her two boys who are out of school. I do barn chores with my coworker. I go home and work on my writing.
Thursday, March 19, 2020: My weekly D&D campaign finds out that one of our member’s roommates has gotten sick. Don’t know what it is yet, but we cancel the session. I am feeling the beginnings of cabin fever. Find out the roommate’s coworkers had traveled to areas affected by Covid-19. He is considered a “low” priority by the local hospital and sent home to self-quarantine for 14 days.
Friday, March 20, 2020: Today: All-in-all, my life has changed very little in terms of actual schedule. I work at a horse barn in the mornings, and horses don’t stop eating or pooping because there’s a pandemic. Some lessons have been canceled, others have continued. Long term effects of social distancing on this business in particular is unknown. There’s a lot that’s unknown.
I’ve posted the third scene of my novel on Wattpad. Some people have been reading it, friends I would assume. I’m going to keep putting it out.
Concerns over travel plans months down the line are now surfacing. We had, literally two weeks before this all really started, put in our payment for the Wxr Cruise. It would suck to lose that money.
I am stressed, a low level sense of worry that is making my depression worse. My period is two days “late”. I’m not on a rigid schedule anyway, so this is not unusual, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the stress is effecting it as well.
All anyone’s talking about online is Covid-19. How to deal with it, what they’re doing, what the world looks like without people in it. I saw a picture of the Bellagio in Las Vegas dark. I’ve seen pictures of clear water in the Venice canals. Of wildlife moving into the cities that have been temporarily abandoned. There are stories of people helping. Stories of governments bailing out their citizens. Not in America, but in other places.
There is fear along with the hope that perhaps, somehow, this could change things in the world. I mean it already has, but I mean that the good things it creates will somehow take root, real change made, a new outlook on how the world works during the 18-months they’re predicting before we get a vaccine.
It’s been a week.
