*This post is strictly my opinion. Read it as such.
In NJ, Covid 19 began for me with a Monday night when I drove around to eight different stores looking for hand sanitizer. I couldn’t get any.
And I had bought some five days earlier.
A few days after that, I stopped by a Shop Rite to pick up pasta sauce. The crowds were frantically pulling staples off the shelf, and I, getting caught up in their energy, grabbed two large cases of toilet paper and paper towel, not because I needed it, but because I was afraid.
A week later there were rumors of closing schools and on Friday, March 13th, an early dismissal was announced, followed by the announcement that we would be closed indefinitely. It was 10:00 a.m.
Today is April 21st.
The news highlights how essential workers, who are usually working for an hourly wage, and are not making big money such as Wall Street and other corporate executives, are balancing fear of getting sick, and the need to get paid to support themselves and their families. They are the bus drivers, grocery workers, delivery people, and postal workers who touch our lives daily, if not weekly.
It is a luxury to be able to stay home and work. I know this. And each time I go out to get food, drop off something at the post office, or get take out, I smile and say “thanks”.
While I appreciate that people need to go back to work, and that our economy is suffering, I can’t help but notice the irony that public parks are closed, yet golf courses will be opened. You need to have money to play golf. You don’t need to have money to go to a park.
There is something terribly wrong with large businesses gobbling up the Federal relief money while mom and pop shops can’t get loans. At least Shake Shack gave back their $10 million.
This pandemic has highlighted the vast gap between the haves and the have nots. And this divide differs from state to state.
And the effects of the pandemic are not the same either. NJ and NY are hot spots, with NY being Ground Zero. And while things are getting better, I’m not sure that things will ever be the same. NJ had over 300 deaths just today.
It’s hard to see images of people flooding the beaches in Florida and South Carolina. God, I’d love to go to a beach.
But I’d hate to get sick.
This pandemic is not just making Americans ill, it’s tearing us apart.
Meandering Through Midlife 