I’m back in the trenches again. After a week off for sickness/quarantine, it feels good to be at work.
I may be returning to normal, but my morning commute to work reminded me that not everyone is continuing their routines. Disruptions continue. Traffic was light, and flow of traffic speed was about 10 mph faster than usual. That represents a lot of people not on the road, stuck at home. Some are working. Some are not. Life will never be the same for any of us.
Life goes on, nonetheless. I talked to the Little Man as I was packing my lunch. He will be doing school at home and I asked him to make sure he took ‘recess’ outdoors today. It’s a nice day and he needs fresh air. We live in a small, quiet neighborhood, so he hasn’t got a buddy to play with, even if that was socially acceptable at this time.
The Ginja Ninja’s hours were slashed at work, and she is job-hunting. But so are a million other people, and I am not using hyperbole here. The Jr Mad Scientist, on my recommendation, went to her management to offer her hours to others in her workplace that need the money for bills. She is living at home still with us, and can exist without the work. The First Reader was able to return home from his self-imposed exile to care for his parents (who are much improved!) but his job was sacrificed for that, before the global crisis. It is good to have everyone back under the same roof. No matter how insane the world gets, we have one another.
We are already beginning to see the fallout from this crisis. The ripples will continue for a long time. My children are coming of age in a different world - they just don’t know it yet. It is still sinking in. How different? I don’t know. Good, or bad different? Both. That I can say with certainty. There is creation, even in destruction. It is just very difficult to see that clearly until much later.
Life went on in Europe during and after the Black Death. This is no bubonic plague. The economic repercussions are going to be far more severe than the death toll. This does not negate the tragedy of the deaths - it is simple cold equation. The deaths in the aftershock ripples from suicide, hunger, and exposure will be greater than deaths from the disease itself. Which is why we must not despair. Life continues and the sun rises. Hope remains and asks nothing of us.