Sometimes I Feel I've Got To Run Away

Bang!  Zoom!  Send me to The Moon!

Remember that "Tainted Love" song from Soft Cell - or Marilyn Manson, if you like covers? (I like 'em both.)

Sometimes I feel I've got to 

Run away

I've got to

Get away...

I feel that in my soul!  

Not for any dark, awful reason.  It just feels like we've been on an extended staycation, all up in each other's business, and there are no separate corners to retreat to.  

We're over two months into this, and while some restrictions have been lifted, things are still weird and in this half-life shut-downy kind of mode.  I haven't been many places.  I've driven to the school and been as far in as the entryway to drop off papers.  I've been through a few drive-thrus and inside one McDonald's to order to-go.  I've picked up medicines at the vet's.  All of these places that were so normal as to be banal to me Before feel odd and a little foreboding, like a Twilight Zone version of themselves.  I didn't like being in those places this way.  I haven't been to a store since March 14.  That is something I used to look forward to, even if it was grocery shopping.  My husband has been doing that, piecemeal, because he's already out and about for work.  

He's been doing all the running to places.  Zoe and I stay home.  There are no leisurely strolls around Target for us right now.  No trips to Wegmans or the Mall.  She and I used to like to be on the go when she wasn't in school.  But we stay home right now.  I can't be taking an eight-year-old into a grocery store.  I've seen the judgy posts on social media around people who do that, and the arguments that ensue, because maybe the other parent is at work or maybe the parent is single and you have to bring your kid into the store either way, because you can't leave them in the car, or you'll get arrested.  

It wears on the soul, though, staying home so aggressively when you're used to getting out of the bubble at least once or twice a week for whatever reason. But I'd almost rather stay home and remember the way places used to be, instead of venturing out right now much, and seeing this half-life we're all living.  I guess that's a luxury I have, even if it doesn't feel that way.

There's no telling how much longer this is going to go on.  That's what's messing with me, like when you're stuck on hold with Verizon or the health insurance company, and you don't know when you're going to get to speak to an agent, because they're experience a higher than expected call volume (they ALWAYS are experiencing a higher than expected call volume, aren't they?)  No matter how long you actually spend waiting for an agent to pick up, if you don't know how long it's going to be until then, every minute feels like it lasts eighty-four years.  

That's how Pandemic Purgatory has felt.  

So sometimes I feel I've got to run away.  I've got to get away from this twisted Twilight Zone version of reality we're living in right now.  The utterly bonkers thing is that there really isn't anywhere to run to right now.  

Still, all this time, with no place to go.  

What a time to be alive.

It'll be a long time before I take for granted the banality of going into a grocery store or McDonalds and not seeing masks and plexiglass shields and feeling the fear and paranoia in the air.  I really do not want to get used to this particular phase of All This.

Friends, optimism ebbs and grows, especially with me lately.  I still believe our best days are ahead and someday, Pandemic Purgatory will be just a story we all tell and a lesson we all learn from (hopefully).  Until tomorrow, be good to yourselves.