Taking a break from the usual skate related material today to discuss a little more about the Corona Virus situation. Although most of us have elaborated on what the change has been like for us personally, we haven’t really gotten into (besides some mentions) what it’s been like for our parents or other’s and their perspectives on everything that has been happening.
As a refresher, and a possible different perspective on the worldwide pandemic, I decided to ask my mom some questions about how this has all taken a toll on her….
She discussed how, just like me, she is keeping busy by doing work around the house. She works for Easthampton Savings Bank in the call center, and was part of half of the office that was asked to work from home. This was done in order to lighten the amount of people coming in and out of the building on a daily basis.
During her breaks and in her free time she goes on walks outside and enjoys spending time with my dad, brother, and I in the house. My dad is not so much present, seeing as the company he works for still considers his physical attendance essential. She also tries to stay busy by gardening and doing yard work, seeing as we’ve been getting plenty of rain and warmer weather lately.
Overall, because she is still working, everything seems normal for a majority of her days, but it is the little things that remind her that it is not so normal. She can’t turn around and talk to a colleague, and the house seems much more quiet and lonesome throughout the day (something I can relate to). She misses being social with others, which I’m sure is a feeling very common to others as well.
Something I really wanted to discuss with her was her possible experience with anything like this before….of which she had none.
When I was a toddler, my mom ran a daycare business at our house, which is the only other time she worked a job spending this much time at home. There was also the October Snowstorm in 2011, but that only left us without power for maybe a week and a half. We were still able to leave our house to escape the boredom once roads were cleared. Other than that, she cannot think of another situation this traumatic besides 9/11. It caused the same level of panic, but no businesses besides airlines really closed as a result.
After this is all over, when social distancing is no longer required and businesses open back up, she doesn’t believe that people will go back to normal life right away. She thinks that this is going to leave people with some serious PTSD and distrust in others. It definitely seems like this will take much longer than we anticipate to recover from. Not only that, but a majority of people are going to be dealing with income issues that they suffered from while being laid-off, or might even lose their jobs entirely.
It’s definitely weird to think about how we are going through what might be considered the biggest tragic milestone of our lifetime. Although it’s important during this time for everyone to be taking necessary measures to ensure their own and other’s safety. Hopefully with these actions and a positive outlook, we will be through the dark tunnel before we know it.
In the meantime, try to spend as much time at home if you can help it and avoid large crowds or places where people visit regularly. Also… WASH YOUR HANDS 🙂
We will get through this!
Skate Like A Girl 