One year ago today, was the last day I worked in my office. Since then, I've been working from home. There have been a couple of days I have had to go in for various reasons, but I can count those on one hand. If I had known then, what this past year had in store for me....I would not have believed it.
I would consider myself a social person. By that I mean, I'm good at it. I'm good at being social. I feel as though I can interact with people and for the most part, I think people enjoy being around me. I usually manage to say the right thing at the right time and avoid looking like an idiot. Although, maybe I should take a poll, just to be sure. In many ways, it is an act. I do what I do. I do what is required. I move on autopilot, the way of least resistance. But, deep down, way down, there is a darkness within me that cries out for solitude. This year forced my hand. I was forced to pull away from the distractions of my life. I was forced to face my fear and anxiety head on. Basically, I was forced to swim.
Because of the type of job my husband has, he was not able to work from home, so he continued to work everyday. My youngest daughter was already homeschooling before the pandemic. My middle daughter is autistic and goes to a Special Ed school. I can't remember exactly when they sent her home, but she ended the school year doing Zoom classes.
The good part about working from home was that I didn't even have to get dressed! My wardrobe consisted of day time pajamas and night time pajamas! I didn't even have to brush my teeth or my hair...no one would know! We had all our groceries delivered and rarely went out at all. If we did decide we wanted fast food, it was always the drive-thru or Uber Eats. We came awfully close, one time, to having NO TOILET PAPER in the house of 4 people...3 of us being girls! It was a learning curve, for sure.
By the time summer came, I was tired of being locked down with my family. I was willing to trade families for a month or so, but I had no takers! Then, when school started up again...things got dicey. The numbers showed things were getting better but the predictions were that there would be a surge of new cases around the holidays. We were doing our part. We weren't going anywhere or doing anything. We were watching Mass on YouTube and our Netflix account was working overtime. The only time I went out was to bring my daughter to school. She was armed with hand sanitizer and masks. Everyday, faithfully, I would drop her off fully protected. They had a staff member standing outside taking temperatures before anyone could walk into the building. Every afternoon, she would come out of the building masked up (and sometimes she also was wearing a face shield).
In early September (it was September 1st, to be exact), I got an email from Amelia's school saying that they had a COVID positive staff member. They were informing us as a "courtesy", but they said this staff member had little to no contact with any of the kids. The email didn't indicate we should keep the kids at home, so, I kept sending her into school. I trusted them to tell the truth and if this positive staff member wasn't even in the same part of the building as the classrooms, then I had no reason to fear exposure.
Boy was I wrong.....
