Time Passes

 One of the strangest things about being stuck in the pandemic is how completely unhooked from the normal passing of time I've become. Before the plague struck, the routine was largely:

• M-F, everyone leaves in the morning and comes home in the afternoon. We spend the evening together (over a shared meal or otherwise) and then go to bed with some thought to the next day.
• Sat/Sun, usually an outing. Possibly out for breakfast or brunch. Watch a sporting event one of the afternoons, possibly both. Sunday night has a feel of getting ready for the next week of work or school.

This is no longer true. The FP Gal and the kids still have school and work but it's different. No one leaves home so it doesn't feel like they've broken away to a different thing. They simply go down to their various rooms and do their thing. The kids filter up at various times every morning and I try to keep the boys quiet. I see the ladies at lunch and again later in the afternoon when they're done with school for the day.

In the evening we may or may not eat together. (My kids are now all expert in getting their own meals ready.) During screen time the kids disappear, giving me the much needed mental break of not trying to keep them quiet. Then bedtimes happen and their day is done.

Sometimes I feel like the lotus eaters from the Odyssey. I don't have quite enough time to launch big projects of my own so I nibble at smaller things. A few times this year I've gotten hooked by a large book but those times have been rare. Usually I simply can't concentrate for the long times needed to really enjoy it.

The seasonal thing has been harder. The pandemic hit in March and promptly canceled one of the big events in the sports calendar: the NCAA Men's basketball tournament. All of the other sports shut down too, including that annual harbinger of spring, baseball. By the time my White Sox came back it was July and it felt very off. Don't get me wrong, they were a lot of fun to watch this year, but the empty stands made it feel something like a huge succession of practice games.

More recently, we had a huge snowfall in October, the largest in recorded history for our area. We had significant snow on the ground and it felt like winter was starting six weeks early. The snow did melt as we had a very warm early November. In fact, here we are on the day before Thanksgiving and the ground is still clear of the white stuff. Which is fine with me, but it's still messing with my mental calendar.

Celebrations are all wrong, with only immediate family able to attend. We aren't driving to see family on any of the big family holidays. We aren't gathering together as a community to watch fireworks. There are no parades. All of the special things are . . . different. (I don't blame the planners, things are different. But that doesn't make it easier.) 

I'm sure when we look back and try to communicate this era to later people, this will be the hardest thing to explain to them. Yes, we were afraid to be sick. Yes, we were uncertain of what measures were needed. We were especially uncertain of how much of the measures were needed. But for me, the hardest part has been the passing of time. Internally, I don't know when it is. 

Maybe even more importantly, I don't know when I ever will again.