covid

Time of my life with Corona

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It took 26 months of quarantines, lockdowns, social distancing, home schooling, no work, too much work in weird modes, toilet paper hoarding (remember that?), mask wearing, protests, antivaxxers, ever-changing rules and regulations, and three shots of vaccine, but I finally got Covid-19.

First off, I should say that I have been lucky. No fever, no difficulty breathing (which would be horrible), just cold-like symptoms paired with fatigue and occasional heart palpitations (scary, but apparently not lethal), so holding out to get Omicron rather than the earlier variants seems to have been well worth it. (And, to quote a friend, “if it hadn’t been mild after three shots I’d turn antivaxxer myself!”).

I’m also happy to report that the Belgian health system works, overall. I got symptoms Thursday evening, did a self test in the morning and had it confirmed at a local pharmacy within a couple of hours (in the backyard, so as to avoid contaminating other customers), then got an online notification in the afternoon. A quick call to my boss and my family GP, and suddenly I was on sick leave for eleven days.

And so began the time of my life with Corona, confined to my house and garden. The first couple of days I was too tired to do anything much apart from worrying that the disease might get worse. I went from my bed to the sofa and back, pretty much. Since I couldn’t go grocery shopping and didn’t have the energy to cook I subsisted on toast, musli and instant noodle soup – all thankfully available in abundance. Something else to be thankful for: I never lost my sense of smell or taste. Although I will say that eating the same instant noodle soup four days in a row can make you wish you had lost your tastebuds.

After the first few days I did get better, and was desperate to get out, having stared at the walls for too long. However, with the weather being what it is the garden wasn’t an option, as it resembled a rice paddy more than anything (Remember the first spring when life in the time of Corona meant the virus had us all lounging outdoors in glorious sunshine? No such luck.) It was so wet I thought I saw goldfish from the pond make little excursions, but I might have been mistaken. Equally desperate for some sort of physical interaction, I snuck out early mornings to visit the deer that live in an enclosure at the edge of my village. Turns out they enjoy old carrots and broccoli (which was all I had in my fridge by this stage) and I could even hand feed them.

It sounds silly, but those mini-walks made a difference. I can see why prison inmates feed birds – it’s not that the birds represent freedom, it’s the fact that you are doing something for another living being. Not being allowed to see anyone was much harder than I thought it would be. Thank goodness for WhatsApp, Skype, Facetime and Signal, but it’s just not the same. I’m a very tactile person, and not being able to hug my kids was the worst part of it all. As for online chats, the children had school, and in what little time that remained after class and homework they didn’t want to talk for long to their snotty, sleepy dad who wasn’t doing anything fun anyway.

In a way this was a scary premonition of what life in retirement might be like: limited energy, little social contacts, and no real goals or ambitions. That thought alone was enough to keep me working towards my new year’s resolutions as much as I could. I meditated, stretched, played the piano and chess, planned trips and investments, and read three books. But then of course on my second to last day of isolation Putin decided to invade Ukraine (again), so maybe war will break out and I won’t have to worry about retirement at all…

Thanks, given.

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Like most Europeans I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, that most American of holidays. Ironic, since they export everything else, and also because it’s one of the few things about their culture that is both genuinely theirs and genuinely genuine.

The orange menace – not on the list.

And yet, this year – this strange, divisive, scary year – I feel a need to give thanks more than I usually do. Perhaps because so many of the things we normally take for granted have been taken away from us, such as: will I be able to see my family? Will everyone I know be alive at the end of the year? Will I have a job for long? Will democracy prevail?

So. I am thankful. For so many things. For the fact that everyone I know has survived Covid so far, in spite of several friends having had scary experiences.

I am thankful for my kids, and their resilience – they managed the transition to distance schooling as well as can be expected, and I got a chance to spend more time with them (something for which they may or may not be thankful), teaching them and learning from them.

I am thankful I have got a job – I can’t imagine the stress experienced by people who were laid off in the middle of this crisis! – and that I live in a country with a functioning healthcare system.

I am thankful for my friends, old and new, who – although they are scattered across the world in places like Australia, Texas, Hungary, Wales and Massachusetts – have felt closer to me than ever.

I am thankful for the fact that Covid has helped improve my relationship to the children’s mother a little – forced to isolate from the world for weeks and months we had little choice but to socialize with one another, and it turned out to be ok.

I am thankful for having been able to see my extended family in person at least a couple of weeks this summer, and for the technology that enables me to see them on screen for the rest of the time.

I am thankful for Biden winning the US elections; that decency prevailed (just!) in a country I grew up thinking was good through and through, which in reality turned out to mostly be – much like their Thanksgiving holiday – about selfish overconsumption at the expense of others.

And finally I’m grateful for the fact that Covid will hopefully be defeated before long – would that the pandemic experience will bring about the change that is needed in this world! At least then all the pain and suffering hasn’t been for nothing.