I don't remember the beginning

I remember that month clearly. We'd been on vacation in Puerto Rico for the month, the first time we'd ever opted to stay put in one place for the entire time. Turned out our condo wasn't as nice as advertised but we spent most of our time outside so it didn't bother us too much.

PR took absolutely no preliminary actions until the first case arrived off a cruise ship on 3/18 at which time they locked the entire island down hard immediately. Bars and restaurants closed. Non essential businesses closed. Beaches and sidewalks, no dice. If you went outside you were masked and you wore gloves in the grocery stores. We found a small cadre of neighbors that would sunbath in the parking lot because the cops couldn't come on private property, but the few times I went ocean swimming I was promptly called ashore and threatened by the cops.

After a few days in the crummy condo we were bored and hung over and the Governor was talking about shutting down the airport which would have left us stranded long term, so we bolted home 6 days early. It was eerie because the flights and airports were empty.

Looking back, it was amazing how quickly and efficiently the whole island responded with no protests or resistance. I guess living on an island gives you a different take on social responsibility. I'm still shocked and appalled at how sadly our nation responded.

I would like to make the admission that if myself or my husband had been able to work from home during any of this, I’d probably have an entirely different take on this entire debacle. Both of us are essential workers. (Imagine the saved $ and time in commuting!) In husband’s case it was rough watching half the staff be allowed to work from home - and continue to fight to stay there - while the on site staff had to deal with all the stress, larger workload, and no pay differential. The most maddening part of that is that the loudest screamer about returning to the office is a Dump stain Antivaxxer. So she’s slurping up the gravy at home - at a union job - while doing her damndest to keep her perk. There’s no reason they shouldn’t be back in the office. But they’re still getting away with it while everyone else has done more than their part for over two years. It’s some bullshit and it’s causing a lot of anger amongst the other workers. There’s also the problem that the woman is so loathed that the other office workers don’t have to have to work with her. I’m sure these types of dramas and resentments are playing out all over.

I feel the same about not accomplishing anything and unlike yourself, I can't look at anything and say I did that :). My H built a greenhouse that killed all my plants lol. It's a shed now, so I guess there's that.

There are huge swathes of this past 2 1/2 years that feel like a drug dream. I remember some things in exquisite, slow motion detail, and others, pure haze. I was looking at my yard the other day and realized that I’ve done nothing but beat myself up for not accomplishing enough. And yet I was staring at a huge project that I’d essentially forgotten I’d even fucking done. Life has been weird since dystopia began in 2016. Worse since the virus.

I had been following the story since January, and we knew it was coming. By the time March hit, our house looked like a bunker, as we were trying to build up enough supplies to take our kids out of school at the right time, shut and lock the front door, and sit inside for 6mo while it burns through the population.

The local threat started becoming real right about the time my kids were sent on spring break. When their school announced a two week closure, I told the kids their school year was probably over. I was right; while they did have online classes to finish out the year, they did not return to school in person until the next school year.

Oddly, I look back fondly on early quarantine times. Spending so much family time together, with us having relaxed most normal routines to just give all of us room to breath, was fun. I taught my daughters to play poker, and we used Hershey kisses as currency. I got a good retro gaming setup going, and introduced my kids to the nintendo games and arcade games I'd played as a kid.

For school, in addition to online school, we worked on trying to teach the kids some things. My wife focused on teaching them Spanish and doing craft projects with them, I focused on teaching them science. I also had them enrolled in any halfway decent online lesson I could find.

My father and I would get old boxing matches going on simultaneously on youtube, put our phones on speaker, and watch together as though we'd been in the same room, commenting on the fights and talking.

My wife and I came up with an education plan for her (she'd never had the opportunity to go to college when she was younger), which I add, she has now achieved -- she did a four year degree from a local university in two years, and did it all online.

We remodeled the house to create home offices for my wife and I. Our house was built in the 70s, and had this long dining room / sitting room area running along the entire length of the house on one side, already walled off, and this area was never used. We had the middle walled up, installed french doors on each end, viola, his and hers offices, each with a nice window looking out over the front lawn.

During all this, miraculously, my business kept up and I had my second highest earning year ever despite spending half the year locked away in my house.

We did our best to avoid too much doom scrolling.

I miss it in a strange way.

I knew I was fortunate because Mr. Monster and I do not have any children to worry about, and I had been out of work by choice for about a year before the pandemic hit. Mr. Monster has a high value job, and they were smart in their handling of it. Well before lockdown, they stopped all overseas travel and recommended avoiding U.S. travel for work as well. When the lockdown hit, everyone who didn't need to be on site was sent home to work remotely, and Mr. Monster is still working from home 90% of the time.

We aren't in a coastal city, like NYC, so we knew it was coming but figured it wasn't too prevalent in our town yet, so we did go to the mall the day before lockdown (Sunday), the day before schools were going to be closed, which I have never seen in all my life. Mr. Monster made me eat at The Spaghetti Factory, and I told him fine, but if this is my last restaurant meal before I die of Covid, I will haunt you from the grave.

Really, the fear of Covid has been hard, but El Crappy Tan being at the helm during the beginning caused so much more anxiety for me.