Things are getting to me today. My hubby listened to me rant. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts and frustrations here.

Like everyone else, I’m stuck at home. I have been here since March 16. I have asthma, and I’m 61. My doctor wrote a letter recommending I stay home because of my “co-morbidities”. My employer sent most everyone home to work remotely not long after that. Sadly, they laid off some others.

I’m glad I still have a job. I do miss my nice desk and its great setup. I am thankful that I am slammed with work, whether I’m at work in my nice office building or sitting in my pjs in my dining room. I am working daily from 8:30 to 5:00 using a tiny Chromebook with a 6” x 10” screen. I’m going to need a new glasses prescription when this is over!

I miss my coworkers. I miss the camaraderie with people of a like mind. Communication by text and email is difficult. Not being able to see someone’s face or hear the inflections in their voice leads to misassumptions and confusion. I also want to water my plants! I have several on my desk. I had our mailroom staff take care of them last week, but I hate to impose on them.

I am grateful for full tummies and enough cash to buy what we need. I miss being able to freely go to the store and buy my own stuff off of full shelves. I’m grateful for Instacart shoppers, but I miss making my own choices and deciding on my own replacements. I hate either waiting to pick things up or meeting a stranger at my front door to collect my deliveries while staying six feet apart. Everything ordered on line also costs more.

I am lucky to have the distraction of music and a flexible and helpful teacher. I do miss going to my guitar teacher’s house for my lesson where I can see and hear her while I play my bass and sing. We’ve been doing lessons on FaceTime. It’s been interesting. I’m now a vocal student, too, and I feel silly doing some of the vocal exercises where my family can overhear me. There is often a delay interacting electronically. When we play music together, the sound often cuts out, and I have to guess where we are in the song. I miss the feedback and the joy I get in playing together in person.

I wish I could keep all of us here safe and isolated. My 62 year old hubby broke his elbow at the end of February and was on worker’s compensation for a month. When the pandemic began, he was still here at home. I wasn’t as afraid with him here with me everyday. As a truck driver, he is an essential worker and much in demand. His employer couldn’t wait for him to return from disability leave. He got a verbal release from his doctor, and he jumped right back in two weeks ago, and within days he was sent right into New York City with deliveries.

My 29 year old son is also an essential worker. He works at a metal fabrication shop, and among other things, they finish parts for medical equipment. He is a type 1 diabetic, and he has gone out to work every day into this scary world we’re living in.

I’m grateful we’ve been healthy. Hubby came down with a cold his first week back at work, and he called our doctor. He wasn’t running a fever so they didn’t think he had the virus. He came home briefly today for just a few minutes. I hadn’t seen him since March 29th. He stayed out because he was needed, and because he didn’t want to give me his cold. I hate these times when all I want is for my husband to be able to be here and hold me without fear of getting me sick.

I’m a homebody, and I’m scared I’m going to be so used to being HERE that the first time out for a whole day is going to be just as traumatic as the first day of school all over again.

I stopped checking the statistics and reading the sad news stories several weeks ago. I couldn’t handle it. As an upstate New York State resident with a trucker husband who makes regular deliveries downstate in New York City, it was just too much. We’ve been lucky and fortunate, and I’m grateful.

Yes, things are getting to me as I suspect they are to everyone else, and I’m sorry for the long-winded, whiny rant. Please God, keep everyone safe and get us through this.