Unofficial Quarantine, Day 1

It’s day one of my whole family being home under an unofficial quarantine. It feels like a Saturday, not a Tuesday with work deadlines. My daughter and her sleepover friends awoke this morning to hot cinnamon rolls as my husband and I sipped coffee on the sofa and watched the news. My son was delighted to sleep in after a late night of online gaming with his buddies.

I went out to get the mail in the warm Florida sunshine. You’d never know in looking around that the entire world has shut down or is in the process of shutting down, to curb the onslaught of Covid-19 cases. It’s so surreal. 

As I thumbed through the sales flyers from the grocery store back at the kitchen table, it hit me. Who cares what the price of boneless, skinless chicken breasts are this week? It just doesn’t matter right now. What I, and most others, care about is how to stay healthy, fed, and sane amid the rampant contagion and social distancing we’re to practice. 

It was clear life as I knew it screeched to a halt when my husband announced his office was closing starting today. That, in addition to school, church, sports, and almost every form of entertainment, closing indefinitely. 

Photo by Tim Mossholder from Pexels

What’s left is to stay home with family and wait until the rising tide of coronavirus cases subsides. The scary part is, this process has taken upwards of sixty days judging by Wuhan, China, and other places in the world that are weeks ahead of the United States’ experience with the virus.

Awaiting the infiltration of coronavirus onto the shores of the US has been like witnessing a slow-moving train wreck. My husband first began watching this issue closely right when the outbreak occurred in Wuhan. As we’ve seen the horrific progression and catastrophic death tolls rising each day exponentially, we knew it was coming our way. We simply didn’t know when it was going to blow up. And now, the crush of impact has begun.

I feel anxious and uncertain. I’m grateful for the reminder to take things one day at a time and turn all my worries over to God. None of us knows what tomorrow holds.

At the time I write this, there are over 190,000 cases worldwide, 5,700 US cases, and Florida has 173 confirmed cases, with four of them in my county. Just two weeks ago, there were less than sixty in the US.