For Whom The Virus Tolls

How do we keep living when everything is on pause? What do we strive for? What do we look forward to?
I am fearful of this moment – these days, weeks and months. But I am crippled by the idea of ‘after’ – if there is one – what will it be, how will it look and smell and taste. What this trauma of lost time and money and live and love and connection will do to us.

And what remnants will this bubble of distrust leave when allowed to pop. I am fully aware that keeping distance is our only option – but I am similarly aware of the weariness that accompanies. There is no connection from six feet away. No smiles or eye contact. Just fear and suspicion.
My introversion is largely a symptom of my spongy exterior – a heart that absorbs so readily the pain and fear and anger and frustration around it. The neighborly nods and hellos that equalized and calmed me have been replaced by panicked shifts and sudden course corrects.
Every day I walk my dog to the feeling of someone keeping pace but keeping distance. People have turned into stalkers – always staying six feet behind you. When you stop, they stop. When you go, they go. They step into empty streets and navigate around corners. We are no longer negotiating space together, we are fighting for our own sterile piece of it.
And who’s to say that will end? Will this state of anxiety embed in us a general, long-lasting distrust? The safest place in home, the safest place is distance, the safest place is alone, averted, closed off..
I am not so much afraid of dying of this disease as I am living with it. The toll isn’t just on the dead.