Monday Mimisms ~ Coronavirus For Baby Boomers

Don't blink or you'll miss it.
We're all just trying not to die. Life in the land of corona has turned fools into deep thinkers and the cerebral into fools. Do you feel the shift? Have you heard your doors whispering? Can you hear insanity calling?  Don't tell... but I think it might be the placebo effect weighing heavily on our collective paranoia - nothing to be concerned about really. It's just that for baby boomers we reluctantly understand that this long strange trip just got a lot stranger. We all read Orwell's 1984 in high school.
I see long lines of upper middle class SUVs waiting for loaves of bread and sacks of potatoes to be tossed into lifted hatchback trunks in food pantry drive-throughs. Masked people wearing worry like a sleeve. Unmasked people worrying about the people in the masks. We see you much more clearly than you think; there's something about hiding one's face that brings out bravado and brilliance -ask any bank robber, heart surgeon, or keyboard bully. I see confused children sitting alone with laptops in living rooms with no teacher - learning lessons they are too young to understand.  And then there's us. But don't worry about the boomers...we survived polyester pantsuits and Jim Baker. We'll be all right.
I've been alone a long time by choice. 
 I love my independence and enjoy my own company - but I've never felt this lonely.  I sensed it so keenly over Easter weekend. And it has given rise to that funky little byproduct of jail time  - perspective.
I've put off writing about how this pandemic has affected me. It seems so selfish. After all, I'm not hungry or unemployed or suffering physically from this unforgiving plague. I'm so sad for those who are. So sad I can hardly stand it.  What is WRONG with me?? I asked. I'm usually the voice of reason and peace. Why can't I handle a little bit of gigantic amount of stress??   Oh.  Maybe because it's not normal to keep an ongoing global headcount of people dying by the hour on the big screen TV we call life?  It's our new normal.   A normal we all hate.
I realized that if I don't get something scribbled on blog paper soon, I'm going to explode and
 maybe take a few people with me. It's been building in a way that made me worry more about my pride and less about snapping at people I care about. That can't be healthy: so here I am writing at midnight. It's my way of getting a grip on something nobody has  control over. Unrealistic much, Mimi? Maybe. But it's my way.
  I began self-isolating the first week of March, opening pick-up grocery accounts and exploring pharmacy delivery options. I've been determined to stay put for my own safety and in consideration for others.  I haven't been sick with any COVID-19 symptoms that I'm aware of, but since I'm in the high-risk category even the slightest cough or warm-cheek feeling sends my head spinning with fear.    I'm having trouble sleeping and my dreams are prophetically urgent. Is this what happens to soldiers in foxholes? Now, I get it. We've become instant hypochondriacs. Or maybe I should just speak for myself.
When this is over, we'll have a nation and world full of PTSD.  Some of us already had enough life drama to deal with thank you very much. We didn't need forced quarantine to mess with our heads.  Eternal solitude is not good for our mental health. But I'll tell you what it IS good for -  perspective.
Is anybody home? 

I miss touch. I miss kisses. I miss hugs. I miss looking into someone's eyes knowing what they're going to say before they say it. Boomers are intuitive because psychedelic rock lyrics made us Grateful...but not Dead.   Did you catch that?  

One day soon, when all this is over and the world begins to turn again, I'm going to make sure all my face-to-face encounters mean something more than a hasty hello and goodbye.  I might wink at stray dogs and millennials for a change.
 There are people I'm waiting to embrace - I mean really embrace.  Oh, I'm making my list. And those kisses....well..... I'll keep that to myself for now. There are those I want to love on awhile and listen to their housebound war stories. I'll let them tell me all about it over cups of steaming coffee and vodka shots. Some I will never look at the same way again because when the long strange trip drops a sledgehammer of perspective on your quarantined doorstep, you suddenly have miles and miles of minutes to think about wasted time.   Ain't nobody got time for that. 
 BC (Before Coronavirus) was just stale cornbread in a souffle world.  We've just learned how alive life is supposed to be. 
We're all just trying not to die.




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