When Society Paused. (Plague)

 On Sunday (Easter Sunday) I was looking back through my blog to see what I was doing around each Easter weekend, trying to get a sense of life back during normal times. One thing I noticed was how I used the blog, almost as if this was a diary. I got a sense of the moment from back then and I could plug into those old feelings and emotions. I notice that I have stopped doing that, I'm no longer recording moments in my life and just rambling on most times. A perfect example is not mentioning Mr X until I was sure he was sticking around. I understand why I did it but if this is a snapshot of my life, that's a moment in time that is lost. There are funny moments and touching moments that I no longer remember, I can't fondly look back, the virus took over and many moments have been lost.

 I also realized that I'm trying to soften what is happening around us, this is wrong, one day I may be looking back on this post and wondering, was it really all that bad? Why pretend that it wasn't, I should be looking back and thinking, "oh yes, that was one frigging scary time"! It's dishonest with myself if I say anything other than the truth, so I'm going to write about it not as a way to whine and moan about it, just as how I'm seeing it and feeling it personally right now. This post is mostly a letter to my future self but you can read it too.

 First future Steven, speaking of scary times, at this very moment, you are actually wondering if you will be alive next year. Maybe ironically you won't be able to look back because this disease is so contagious, so dangerous, so deadly that you caught it and died in the next few months. This is one of the stresses, it's literally living under the threat of early death. Like an invisible creature hiding, waiting to pounce on you and inject its venom. Once bitten all anyone can do is watch you with a worried look and hope the poison doesn't kill you. At this point in time there is absolutely nothing anyone can do, no cure, no medication, no treatment. We are back in the era of plagues. 

  Society has shut down, you can buy groceries, the mail still comes, restaurants serve takeout  but that's pretty much it. The world will pretty much be like this off and on for the next two years, unbelievable to comprehend at times. Some say we may never have a vaccine, life will change forever, depending on how this goes the luckiest people may be the ones who had it already and only had mild symptoms, like white privilege or wealth privilege, they will have COVID19-privilege a type of freedom envied by others.

 Speaking of changes in society, you (Steven) are being punished for procrastinating and not selling the farm last year. Quebec has finally reached their dream of having a police state, something they have been longing for all your life. What other Canadians are not aware of is the roads and highways are blocked off with multiple police blockades. They record your movements and monitor cellphone use. They overreach and say how it's for your own good.  Yes it makes sense to stop people from large cities coming out to the country but it doesn't make sense to have the small villages in lockdown where there is no virus. You (Steven) because of your plates will never leave the yard for fear of being separated from your family home. I sarcastically say that I feel the next move is to start asking people which ones are Jewish and which ones are not.

 Some day if I'm reading this in the future, I will probably wonder, why I didn't do "this" or "that" (in a general term). The thing you're slowly forgetting is how the seriousness of illness quietly crept up on everyone until suddenly it was roaring in our countries. It wasn't like we saw a monster approaching. We were constantly told by the WHO it's not a pandemic, our politicians were afraid of looking like they were over reacting and feared being called racist for closing travel to hard hit countries, doctors were saying it's just a flu like disease, that it is only dangerous to the elderly and not that contagious. This was not right wingers saying this, although they would keep repeating it later on but fortunately Canada realized their mistake and pivoted incredibly fast. When the time for shut downs were approaching, we were thinking a week, two weeks maybe three. Everything started to change about every 8 hours and the next thing we knew... modern society had basically ended. It feels like living in an apocalyptic movie.

 Hopefully you made it through Steven... if you are looking back reading this and wondering, "was it really that bad, am I exaggerating that time in my memory?" Yes it's really bad, like nothing we ever experienced before. I wonder what horrible things are coming that we haven't thought of yet? Only you already know that.