I Didn’t Realize…

I didn’t realize… how long it had been since I decluttered my drawers (a regular necessity in life, it seems, and I certainly have the time).

I didn’t realize… how many moving boxes have remained ignored for months (I should unpack another three or four, and I certainly have the time).

I didn’t realize… how much I would wish for crazy cronies to coif my hair! (Coronavirus-tested-negative female friends, bien sûr.) Hélas! My lush and lustrous locks are scandalously long and (oh!) more sneakily silvering than I ever knew.

I didn’t realize… how fab it is not to feel guilty over guilty pleasures like Real Housewives on Bravo and foreign films on Netflix and British mysteries on PBS.

I didn’t realize… how much I missed the sound of my sons’ voices (until my texts nudged them into calling, despite their busy work-from-home schedules). And I didn’t realize… my son who lives in Europe has more than one roommate in his new flat. (Social distancing, he tells me, is virtually impossible when he’s indoors.)

Yes, I worry about my 20-something-year-old kids taking the perils of a pandemic seriously; recent phone calls suggest they do, and God knows I hope it’s so.

I didn’t realize… how good six hours of sleep can feel (if only that were more than a once weekly occurrence). Ugh, those wretched restless legs.

I didn’t realize… how much I miss toilet paper. (At present, Kleenex is my friend and t.p. will be delivered, theoretically, in six to 10 weeks. Six to 10 weeks. REALLY?)

I didn’t realize… how much I rely on voices playing in the background on television (even if I’m reading or writing). I live and breathe alone-time, but this much solitude is unwelcome, even for me.

I didn’t realize… the extent to which hard truths — projections of COVID-19 impacts rolling across these United States — could crystallize awareness of where we are in life, what truly matters, and how to channel our energies. (To anyone paying attention six weeks ago (and longer), the figures aren’t a surprise.) And on this point: While I could ramble along on the subject of true leadership, its necessity and the consequences of its unconscionable absence — angrily, philosophically, excitedly, earnestly — I decline to engage in my own departure down that particular rabbit hole, at least for today.

I didn’t realize… it’s April Fools! Would that this bizarre, brutal, cruel Covid creature that is scarring lives across the globe were the stuff of a petulant prank, a terrible trick to be revealed as callously concocted, a bad B disaster movie from which we emerge unscathed, popcorn-sated, and stepping into the light.

I didn’t realize… how loneliness and isolation are best beaten back when we connect and care no matter how that connection and caring are achieved — waving through windows at neighbors, waving thank you to the person who delivers food to the front stoop, waving hello via virtual platforms we rely on now more than ever, catching up on social media with old friends and first loves, picking up a pen, a real pen, to write to local healthcare workers to express our profound, heartfelt appreciation — all of this, and staying home, a different sort — a meaningful sort, an essential sort — of stepping into the light.

Any realizations you’d like to share? The obvious? The obscure? The monumental? The mundane?

 

You May Also Enjoy

• Colonel Mustard in the Library With a Mop

• Personal Essays: Guest Writers on “First Love”

• April Fish, April Fools?

• Moving. Again. Sheesh.