Y is for You #AtoZChallenge

You, meaning all my friends and readers.

Listen, this pandemic sucks. The worst part is that people are actually dying, which is why we’re in self-isolation in the first place. It’s sometimes easy for me to lose sight of that when I’m sitting in my air-conditioned apartment, sad because I’m limited in my movements. (I mean, it goes deeper than that, of course, but you get what I’m saying here.)

But here’s the thing, and you know it’s coming:

This is happening to ALL of us. In varying degrees, yes. But we’re all going through this pandemic at the same time together.

I said in my first A to Z post that I was super grateful for all the people I know who are taking social distancing seriously–especially the people I know personally because it means I have chosen the right people to be friends with. But I am also grateful that, though we are social distancing, we are not alone in our experiences of this pandemic. This is one thing that we know for sure everyone is experiencing, right now. There may be differences in the nuance and the details, but, right now, we are all–ALL–experiencing the effects of the pandemic. And while I am frustrated (and other stronger emotion words) by people who aren’t taking the social distancing protocol as seriously as I do or who are demanding things reopen right now, I get that a lot of that is borne by the stress of social distancing and the want to be able to, say, go to TJ Maxx whenever we want to. Social distancing is saving lives, sure, but it’s still hard and stressful that everything changed so quickly, and one cold comfort I take in it being hard and stressful is that it’s hard and stressful for us all.

So thank you for being human and alive right now, so that there are people who understand what I’m going through.

For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I have decided that I’m going to focus on my survival/coping strategies while practicing social distancing. What are the things that make it bearable? What helps alleviate my stress and fear–or at least what distracts me from both? Tune in tomorrow to see what I choose for Z!