2020: My life is truing surreal

My family and I live in the outer suburbs of Atlanta, a metro area of perhaps 5 million people with the business airport in the world. Atlanta has been a hot spot for COVID, so our household has been self-quarantining for a week now. 

Daily life feels like it could be spring break with all six of us at home -- everyone is healthy, the weather is great, we've got power/water/electricity and have plenty of food and TP. Life is comfortable.

Except I wore gloves and a mask in the grocery store when I went out tonight for the first time this week.

Meanwhile in the background the news is all bad. Sickness is spreading, people are dying, the stock market is tanking, local businesses are closing doors, and people everywhere are starting to worry about their jobs.

An extended family member in DC just got sick, the first person we personally know who caught it. It's only a matter of time before more people we know and love get sick. And, statistically, to die.

It's coming. We just don't know who, or how soon.

This week didn't feel like it was a work week. It certainly didn't feel refreshing like a vacation week, either. What it really felt like was living in a simulation, like I'm driving my body but not fully experiencing what it's experiencing. I'm equal parts dazed and exhausted. 

Can any of you guys relate?

Yep.

Absolutely.  I feel a weird mixture of guilty and excited.  Guilty, because lots of people are suffering, and through luck or circumstance, I'm doing pretty OK.  That doesn't seem fair.  Excited, because it is a time of change (not necessarily good or bad, just a big break from the norm).  I walked through the neighborhood, and it was like the "I am Legend" Will Smith movie.  No one outside, no cars on the road, the public golf course is closed, so I could walk the golf course paths, and there were birds and wildlife EVERYWHERE. 

I don't know if I can relate. I'm on the frontline of the front line. I don't have the option of staying home. I travel 4.5hrs one way for work, work with and in who knows what walks or gets wheeled in through the doors. I bring everything home. I just hope I didn't bring "it" home.

I completely surrounded by "what should I be doing?". I'm not doing anything that I shouldn't be doing in the first place. But I'm stressed way beyond the normal. I don't listen to the sociopaths of the news outlets or the newly minted ID docs of FB, but I'm not ignoring them either...

Wish us luck...

Kid had spring break this week. He hasn't seen my mom in three years so we planned this trip back in December.  She absolutely would not let me cancel this trip. Left Florida last Saturday then the whole world shut down.  Leaving Ohio tomorrow to head back to Florida.  Work is still going so I'll be there sunday night. 

nderwater said:

It's coming. We just don't know who, or how soon.

 I'm equal parts dazed and exhausted. 

Can any of you guys relate?

Very much how I feel.  We started working from home but I'm having a hard time focusing.  Odd because I've wanted to work from home for years.

Family from across the country and across the Atlantic picked the worst time to visit this month.  They wanted to go out the whole time, and when they left I'm worried about them walking around airports.

In reply to Ranger50 :

Good luck, hope you ride this through unscathed.

Pretend you're already dead. It seems to be holding me together. 

It's 2am here. I'm lying in bed, awake.  It's been one week now since this all became "real" for me.  The outlook is grim and it weighs heavy on my mind.

No symptoms yet for anyone in my immediate  (and reduced) social circle. 

I'm definitely just going through the motions.

Trying to distract myself from the impending doom by playing with toy cars.

Eating a lot of turkey sandwiches. Soon we'll be out of bread and I'll be eating double open-faced sandwiches. (That's when both sides have no bread.)

At the beginning of this year my job was to get the kids to school, take care of the house, and support my wife as she went to work. Then I got a real job. Then covid. Now I go to work, kids don't have school, and my wife is working from home. My world is entirely upside down and it's weird. 

Honestly I'm far more calm now than I was weeks ago. We have data now. We have the history of how this has played out/is playing out in other nations to help us prepare, and there are more steps being taken every day to delay and minimize the impact.

Yes, the comings weeks are going to get worse before they get better, and sadly some of us won't survive. But as a society and civilization, we can deal with this. Yes, it might bring permanent changes to the way we live our lives, but we can adapt and eventually learn how to thrive within that realm.

no, I don't think you're the only one feeling that way...

Mandatory work from home, both my wife and I. She's locked on a 6-3 schedule, I just have to get 8 hours between 6-6. Our asthmatic 20 month old son is home from daycare. We pulled him out a week ago, but daycare closed yesterday.  It's rough. Trying to work and watch a toddler at the same time. To get my work done I'm working 11-12 hours, then when I'm finished I hitch the trailer on my bike and hit the trail with my son. (Solitary trail, it's keeping us sane)

Found out that someone at work has it, but they work on a different floor. My brother s  ex may have it, but she's always been in the hospital for something, so not sure if serious.  (Test pending). But they are states away.

Mother in law has a heart condition and works childcare, her center is still open, but she's bowing out due to her risk group. We are all debating having her come down to help with our son. 

Had my first time in the shop in two weeks last night after my son went down. Even just cleaning a set of uprights for the bugeye with startrek and beer helped me. Zen and the art of shoptime.

Dont take my tone wrong. I absolutely love my son to bits.  It's been great spending time with him. It's just stressful trying to work at the same time.

Definitely.  I've gone from working on a construction site 5 states away to working from home. And my company was always pretty anti-WFH for many years, so this is all a big forced reversal for management.  The curious question will be how things might change once all of this finally passes. Unlike many of my coworkers, being a semi-remote employee, I was already set up to WFH, so it was less of a change for me. But still... 

As far as my private life goes, it really hasn't been a big change. I'm an introvert for the most part and tend to not go out much anyway and my one nearby family member (my mother) I communicate with mostly via text.  I still go ride my bike on the weekend, but just with a smaller group.  Mtn bike riding in general tends to keep you a fair distance apart.

I went to disney yesterday as i do some work on equipment for them. So weird. Main gate in and the big row or parking entrance that is always busy, absolutely empty. 1 gate open and not even an employee manning it. Just drive on through.  On the back lot where i expect to see many workers hustling around, i saw maybe 3-4 total, and that included the folks i was working with. . 

Being in Fl, were used to prepping for hurricanes. Having a few days to a week or so to prepare, then get hit, then go outside and clean up and socialize with everyone else cleaning up. 

Last hurricane we knew for a week that we were getting hit. That was a long week, then the storm parked on the bahamas and went north, we never got more than slightly increased winds. 
 

Thats what this is feeling like. Whole lot of time to prep and wait, but without the big event. And yes i know its completely different and the event is here, but when your used to hurricanes...  

wife and i start working from home monday. Gonna be interesting. 

my nerves are shot. I was waiting all last week to be told to go home, instead they kept us in for the whole week while everyone else was home. Kinda hard to get the quarantine thing working when people are still out and about. 

I'm in an essential line of work so I still go off to work mon-thurs at some location 1-4 hours from home. The company did put in travel restrictions which means I have to be home each night, it's really weird with semis being the bulk of the traffic on the roads and police cars sitting everywhere. No one I know or know of has come down with it yet but really with a 4 state area of folks working directly for me it's probably only a matter of time. 
 

The company I work for gave everyone temporary raises, bonuses and some other perks though as a show of appreciation for their dedication during this crazy stressful time which was incredibly generous of them; I think we will see more of that.

The really weird thing is that it seems like this has been going on forever (the WFH/ self shelter in place), but it's only been a week.

For this to be effective, it has to be ~4 weeks.  And the more realistic time frame is more like 8 weeks.

I live in Central Kentucky. Very rural area with some industry.

Almost everything is closed. All four automotive plants, and all their supplier plants.

Our governor (who is doing a phenomenal job IMO) has closed schools until April 20, banned all large gatherings. No church. No youth sports. No concerts. What restaurants are open are carry out only.

Kids have been out of school a week and my wife works from home anyway, so she's been a trooper through this all and has been holding down the fort while I'm at work.

Gov. Beshear also closed all hair and nail salons, so my wife has had to close up.

I'm a garbage man, and if we get closed up things have gotten SERIOUS.

Last night I had the thought of how long until someone we know and love gets infected? What if they die? What if it's someone on GRM?

I love the lot of you, be careful out there.

TJL said:

I went to disney yesterday as i do some work on equipment for them. So weird. Main gate in and the big row or parking entrance that is always busy, absolutely empty. 1 gate open and not even an employee manning it. Just drive on through.  On the back lot where i expect to see many workers hustling around, i saw maybe 3-4 total, and that included the folks i was working with. . 

Being in Fl, were used to prepping for hurricanes. Having a few days to a week or so to prepare, then get hit, then go outside and clean up and socialize with everyone else cleaning up. 

Last hurricane we knew for a week that we were getting hit. That was a long week, then the storm parked on the bahamas and went north, we never got more than slightly increased winds. 
 

Thats what this is feeling like. Whole lot of time to prep and wait, but without the big event. And yes i know its completely different and the event is here, but when your used to hurricanes...  

wife and i start working from home monday. Gonna be interesting. 

my nerves are shot. I was waiting all last week to be told to go home, instead they kept us in for the whole week while everyone else was home. Kinda hard to get the quarantine thing working when people are still out and about. 

 

 

And then we meme'd it so hard it went away anyhow. 

Yeah it’s messing with my head. Right now it feels like waiting for, well, I’m not sure what. I don’t do well with uncertainty.

The kid is homeschooled, so no change there. She’s just getting squirrelly from not getting to do play dates with friends.

My wife works part time from home so no change there.

Work for me goes on as usual and will probably continue that way unless the state shuts down like other states are doing. I’m not worried about getting sick from work. Often it’s been just me in the shop and when I go deliver stuff to the boat dealers I’m in and out, don’t touch anything, use hand sanitizer in the truck.

We’ve got food and supplies at home so we aren’t worried about that.

The biggest change is no church. I’ll be there Sunday morning, running audio tech as part of the small crew broadcasting a live stream.

The weird thing is the constant knowledge that, outside of my comfortable bubble, life for many other people has been horrendously disrupted. 

And I’m not sure how to help or who to help.

And we’re told staying isolated is the best way to help.

It has definitely been weird. I'm in the suburbs of Chicago, my parents are in Florida, and my sister and her family are in Colorado. I haven't interacted with someone in person for over a week. I always thought I was kind of a loner or whatever (I've lived alone for 20+ years), but this is a whole new level.

My wife is on work-from-home but still goes in once a week to a dead office to deal with a bunch of specialized printings and mailings that can't be done from home.

Other than suspending work travel, its business as usual for us, my team has been in the office every day.  So far so good, we have a huge backlog so as of right now we are cranking through it.  Some jobs are pushed back but most are on schedule.   The travel bans have disrupted our competitors' Mexico and Canada and Europe supply chains, our stuff is all made in house or sourced locally in Wisconsin so we are making some hay right now.  

I have this strange thing right now when I wake up in the morning- as my mind sort of "boots up" it rejects reality into the "that was just a dream" pile two or three times before it accepts it.  The only other times I can remember this happening were when I was very sick, and I'm relatively healthy right now.  It's an interesting feeling.

I take an immunosuppressant and am therefore higher risk.  I continued going to work Mon-Wed last week, keeping my distance as much as possible and repeatedly asking to work from home, before eventually insisting on working from home Thursday.  Officially I'm still not approved to do it, and I have no idea whether I will even be allowed to continue working remotely on Monday, but they know I'm not coming into the office again.

I have done a complete 180 on this thing in the last few days.

I work fire department and we are obviously right up in the thick of things when people need EMS care. At first I was all for it because working around the clock, overtime money can be staggering. I worked a 96 hour shift this week. 

But now, sitting here at home on Saturday and faced with going back to work on Monday for either a 48 hour or 96 hour shift, I don't want to. It's causing me some anxiety. I'll do it and suck it up and go to work and carry my weight, but this isn't fun anymore. 

I have two more work cycles then I'm off the entire month of April for vacation. I just have to get through 2 more...

My wife isn't even feeling it. She works pharmaceutical quality control and she's high enough up that WFH is normal. She just sits in her home office and plugs away and doesn't even notice the world going on outside. Earbuds and Zoom meetings are normal for her.

As for me, no freakin problem. I am a serious introvert, so if I can make it past these two work shifts, staying home for a month will be heaven on earth.

We have been placing curbside delivery orders at the Walmart down the street. They cancel some items (peanut butter) but other items they have. We will just keep persistently placing orders and run down there once a week to get our stuff. It's just the two of us so we don't consume a lot. I have been stockpiling OTC medicine in case I do get the Covid. Cough meds, Tylenol, things to drink and stay hydrated. 

Looking for a silver lining in this situation, I should make mad progress on my projects next month. Being stuck in my shop is my favorite thing.

I forgot to say, what I really need right now is for the threshold to be crossed to where we begin to see recovery numbers in this country. Right now it's all doom and more cases piling up. Maybe in a week or so those recovery numbers will start to accumulate.