I'm Coming Out

Tomorrow marks the end of my quarantine. That is, until my governor decides to change his current path of willy-nilliness and halfway addressing current issues and supports the shelter in place effort so many other states have already employed and countless healthcare providers have strongly recommended as a way of truly flattening the blasted curve.

Politics aside, my period of quarantine ends tomorrow when I return to my job after being on an involuntary, two-week quarantine because I was around someone who was around someone who was around someone who tested positive for COVID-19. You read that right. On March 13, I was sent home from my job because of a third-degree exposure. As a textbook introvert, I did not look this gift horse in the mouth, but, rather, ran home and yanked off my bra, slipped on my soft clothes, threw my hair in a bun and didn’t look back. For two glorious weeks.

The first week was my child’s spring break. We watched Netflix and made cookies and played games and went for walks. It was like a warmer Christmas break and one without all of the materialism and decorations to put away.

This past week, my child began remote classroom with her school. As she sat at a desk in front of a computer for 8+ hours per day, I did my best to give her space and peace and quiet by holing away in my bedroom, snacking, watching Gilmore Girls and Fantasy Island and Nat Geo and HGTV, and, when all else failed, taking long naps. It was glorious.

I saw this meme and it really resonated.

No, it didn’t catapult me into action, but it resonated. Yes, I flipped my closet from cold to warm season clothes. I listed some pieces on Buy/Sell/Trade and Poshmark. I organized the pantry and laundry room and tidied the fridge. I put the dry cleaning away. I even found a website called DuoLingo that is a free language learning site. I decided to brush up on my French skills. I am now back to intermediate level and can order two croissants in a bakery again. What’s still lingering on my to do list that I just didn’t quite get to? Well, the same things that have been there for six months or more:  dust bathroom light fixture, dust baseboards, deep clean this and organize that.

I’ll tell you what I learned during this experience:

• My days started much like they did in my PC (pre-Corona) life:  coffee, pets, couch, devotional, news, scrolling FB and Insta.
• I’m really good at napping. I mean, seriously good.
• I love my family and they love me. There is some sound wisdom, though, in the statement “distance makes the heart grow fonder.”
• Whether home all day during quarantine or coming home after a long day at work, I am a classic “early to bed” girl.
• I miss and apparently need routines.
• I love being around my pets all day. I think they shared the sentiment.
• I’ll state again, I have mad napping skills. I mean, I could maybe give a Ted Talk.

And the biggest discovery I’m taking away from this whole thing is riddled with common sense and I’m sure everyone else has been doing this all along but it’s new to me so I’m sharing it in case just one of you isn’t already doing this:

I run the dishwasher every night. Now those of you who aren’t third generation only children may be thinking, “well, duh.” But it’s just three of us here. And what used to happen was I would tidy the kitchen at night and look at the dirty dishes and think, “well, it’s not enough to fill the dishwasher so I’ll just wait to run it.”  What would inevitably happen, though, would be the next night, more dishes would appear and they wouldn’t all fit in the dishwasher so I would get caught in an endless cycle of the washer being full and the sink having dirty dishes in it. Now, I run the dishwasher every night. Now, no, I’m not going to run it with a plate and a glass in it but if it’s more than half full, it gets the green light. The average dishwasher uses 4 gallons of water, so I figure this exercise is worth my happiness and mental wellness.

I’m going back out there tomorrow. I won’t lie -- I'm scared. I’m not really scared about getting sick myself, but I’m really scared about bringing it home to my loves. So, as exciting as it will be to bring a paycheck home again, I pray that’s all I bring. Y’all stay well out there. No hoarding paper products or baby piglets or whatever the next “it” item is, okay?