I'm fine/I'm fucked: personal, selfish pandemic experiences you are having now

The Quarantine Zone
21

I’m mostly fine and slightly fucked.
Fine in that I’m retired and we live in a place that has virtually no cases of Covid. Husband is a health care provider but because of the minimal cases and the protocols that have been put in place his risk is very low. Our province has actually pretty much opened up so going out to dinner with friends and socializing is fine. And during the few months where it was prohibited our bank accounts were much healthier.

But… and isn’t there always one … I was in the queue for an elective surgery back in February. That has been delayed and postponed and delayed some more. And the reason/symptom for it has not delayed or postponed nor has the trepidation. I’d really, really like to get it over with. At this point I figure I’ll get really close and all things will shut down again because of a second wave.
Our rather extensive travel plans have all been indefinitely delayed and the offspring all live in faraway places that are not accessible and that rather sucks.

But those closest to me are all healthy and we live in a pretty safe place in the world so compared to what some of you are going through, I’m barely impacted.

Reading these threads does give you a better perspective.

22

Extremely low level f’d: I have friends overseas (Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong*) who I’d hoped to visit this last spring. Now I don’t expect to see them in 2020 or 2021. One is in his 70’s and obviously at risk and lives in Tokyo, so I’m quite concerned; we’ve known each other 30+ years.

*Obviously Hong Kong was a special case before C-19, and I wondered if I’d see friends there any time soon.

23

Wow, you are going through a real collection of rough patches!
Just to let you know that many of us care, and wish you the best.
Hugs, hugs, hugs.

24

Thoughts going out to all having a rough time. It’s a crazy thing.

My Wife’s brother died in March. A surprise (not covid related). His kids deceided that they have to have some sort of memorial, they had been putting it off, and my Wife and I wanted them to wait until next summer. This memorial/family-gathering is happening today, July 4th. Just when the state made orders to limit gatherings to 25 people. There may be 100 there. Coming from all over. It’s a bad, bad idea. My Wife drove 1500 miles to be there, see her family and help, not a lot of choice. She arrived the day this new limit was put in place. She’s very healthy, so should be ok, but still a bad idea overall. They have $2000 of catered food coming in. I suggested donating it to a hospital or homeless shelter or something in her brothers memory. But this is 11th hour. People are arriving today from all over. Colorado, Mid-Atlantic, North East and Texas, and can’t really call it all off.

I hate loopholes, but there is one. Religious gatherings of more than 25 people are allowed. It is a memorial. There will be a minister there (cousin).

It will be an outside event, and they are taking precautions… but…

I’m doing great. I’ve wanted to work from home for years. There are a couple of friends I miss, but will hook up with when the time comes.

We are actually getting an extra little bit in our paychecks for working from home. I suspect that’s to cover our own expenses as we create our home offices. If people want to or CAN buy better internet speed if they want, it’s on them. But if I wanted to pick up my office chair or something, I could do that. I bought myself a big new computer monitor for my home office.

Raises have been canceled, as has any travel for training. I do most of mine online anyway, and hate conferences and they have all been canceled anyway. And I save money, and most importantly about 1 1/2 hours a day not needing to go back and forth to work. I work when I want, which is nice too. Sometimes a 10 hour day, sometimes 6 hours. I now typically start my work day between 5 and 6am, work until early afternoon, take me and dogs for walk and check in later to see if anything is up. I’ll probably work on Sunday for a bit :man_shrugging: My work planning is much easier. Being able to work early or weekends really helps. I hate to kick people off systems to work on servers or replace data.

25

I work for a software/robotics company. When we shut down in mid-March, I brought home everything I’d need to work from home for a while. The original plan was that we’d be doing that until the end of June. Now the company has decided it will be permanent. All of our software is on “the cloud”, and with video conferencing and other tools, I’m almost as productive as I was before, and without access to all the snacks in the office I’ve been losing weight. I do have to go to the office every once in a while to test things on our specialized hardware, but we’ve been diligent about limiting contact there. It’s actually nice to get out of my apartment. The company is heavily involved in e-commerce, so business is booming. I’m as busy (professionally) as I’ve ever been. I’d never have wanted things to go this way, but it could almost make me rich.

Apart from that, there’s not much. I wasn’t the most social person to begin with. I haven’t heard from my family (what little there is of it) in a while, dating has gone from “once in a blue moon” to “virtually impossible”, and I don’t even have any pets. I’ve been trying to expand my skills in the kitchen; my last batch of fried rice was actually pretty good.

TL;DR Busier than ever, and lonelier than ever.

26

I moved to Canada last year. I was supposed to go see my extended family in Houston and Texas in June, but had to cancel due to the pandemic. Now, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to see them again- some of them are gettin’ up there in age, and have health issues. I may have missed my chance.

27

Sorry about loneliness Robot_Arm. I’m a GIS programmer. Our fields may be a bit similar in a way. Spatial analysis, but on different levels of detail and engineering.

I’ve two dogs and a dear Wife. But we already live remote, chose it and are used to it, and prefer the lifestyle. I think that alone makes things easier to get used too. It must be rough for people living around people. Life really isn’t that much different for me. Well, my ‘office’ is a heck of a lot closer :slight_smile:

When this all hit in March I thought I would have lot’s of time to learn guitar. Not been the case. Too busy. Kind of mad at myself about that. But it’s Ok.

Oddly, when my Wife and I are both working from home, it seems we see each other less. Each have our own offices at home. We share dinner as always, and now instead of TV, play chess or cards afterwords. Now that the weather is getting nicer, we might sit on the deck in the afternoon. A favorite activity that can be rare at altitude because of low temps. Was 41f and raining at 1:30 this afternoon. Not particularly inviting. Our last snow was a couple of weeks ago, but winters snows are all melted.

28

My mother and daughter were supposed to come visit me in Scotland for my 50th birthday in September, courtesy of my most excellent in-laws. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like travel to the UK from the USA is going to be permitted that soon. Also, my mother is an elementary teacher, and September is going to be chaos as they try to adjust to the new reality, so she couldn’t take the time off just then anyway. So, we’re pushing it back to next June, fingers crossed that things will be settled down enough to permit it, without quarantines at either end (or both), etc.

I haven’t seen my daughter in 10 years. She was 19 when I saw her last, she’s 29 now. My mother is 71, and I don’t know how many chances I’ll have to see her again either. I have to hope that they both emerge from the pandemic unscathed, and make it over here. I can’t contemplate any alternatives.

29

It’s not nearly the same Dunkelheit, but maybe try to catch up with zoom meeting/call? It’s pretty easy to do.

30

I quit my job in February to take a little time and recover from work burnout. Instead of taking care of myself like I hoped, instead I’m running point on keeping the kids fed, educated, and entertained during lockdown (without disappearing into a screen) while my wife works.

I wanted to get in shape, do some yoga to fix my body pain from posture. But I don’t really have time to do anything, and the gyms are closed or unsafe anyway. The whole day is like 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off, and it’s incredibly hard to put together enough personal time to do anything except scroll my phone and eat too much. So I’m putting on weight, feeling myself mentally and physically declining, and I’m stressed about that.

They’re now talking about delaying school. I don’t see how I can get a job until the kids are back in school and/or daycare. I guess we’re fortunate that we can make it on 1 income, but my wife doesn’t have airtight job security either. I just wish I knew what the long-term normal is, so I could prepare for it. But I believe there won’t be a vaccine before 2022 (and maybe never), and we Americans are acting like idiots about preventing spread, so it seems like we’ll be stuck in a quasi-quarantine state for some time to come.

31

I’m fine. We’re fine. We lead boring lives nothing is different here. My elderly loved ones are feeling isolated stuck inside their apartment with no end in sight. A cross country drive to see them does not mean I’ll be able to touch them and I want to say give me a hug dammit😷

Am I fucked?

Summary

Never had eczema or shingles but damn . What the hell is this awful itchy rash covering my midsection all of a sudden. I woke up a week ago with it.
Dermatologist is swamped, can’t see me for 2 weeks. I home remedied it with Aloe Vera, gold bond, colloidal oat lotions it got worse. I found a tube of steroidal ointment that expired 2017- Regardless I’m using it. I think it’s getting better.

Small taters in the greater scheme of life. I sympathize with people waiting on needed surgeries and treatments. My bro needed surgery for cancer when a Cat 5 hurricane appeared on the horizon. Very stressful for him to wait it out.

32

We do keep in touch on Facebook and occasional video chat. It’s very much not the same. :wink:

33

WEll, I’m out of a job and will need to scrape up consulting work. I’m fine for money for three or four months but if I can’t find more clients that’s gonna go fast. My wife and I have been living apart since January, too, so it’s been the worst year of my life, really.

But I’m alive, I’m healthy, and I can work on those things. I have skills and an education, people who love me, prospects for work, and the marriage is still repairable. Just have to keep swimming.

34

Could be a fungal infection. If your remedies don’t help, try an over-the-counter antifungal ointment/creme; even one meant for athletes foot or yeast infection may help, if you have some lying around.

35

I’m mostly fine, but the whole thing is just surreal.

Last year I made the decision to retire. There were a huge number of compelling reasons to do this.

  1. My mother had to go into full time nursing and her Medicaid personal responsibility obligation (broadly, her co-pay) was equal to her SS income. My brother and his daughter were living in the family home but could not afford to maintain it on their own, and the master suite was unoccupied.

  2. My business was not doing well, I had lost my major pipeline for new work. A couple of clients really tried to help me and gave me two REALLY large contracts, which had paid the bills for the last few years. But those were coming to an end and I wasn’t getting the steady stream of routine work that I needed to stay in business.

So I consolidated my investments with a new financial advisor and told him I wanted to retire. He looked at my portfolio, asked me a few questions, and said “Congratulations, you can do it”.

So I began the process of winding down my business, renovating my apartment, cleaning, packing and moving.

I got to my new home right around Christmas but I was still busy getting the place ready, buying a vehicle and finding a tenant for my NYC apartment. I made my last trip to New York on March 1st and came back to my new home on March 5th.

I had said at the time that all I wanted to do was lie around in bed for about a year, watching TV and playing games and reading news and the SDMB on my tablet.

Be careful what you wish for, I guess. One one hand, it hasn’t gotten old yet. On the other hand, it’s just weird. I was “between lives” when this happened, I hadn’t had a chance to develop a new daily routine when the pandemic hit. Sometimes I just look around and think “Where the f am I and how did I get here?” I’ve been chasing the light at the end of this tunnel for a long time, now I’m on the other side and not really sure what to do.

And I have what I call my personal decompression syndrome - which happens when I’m under lots of stress for a long time and it’s suddenly released. It’s more than relief, my brain’s so used to stressing it starts grabbing on to trivial things and stressing about them.

And I have this overwhelming sense of having dodged a bullet. Timing is everything. If this had happened a year or six months or even two months earlier, I would’ve been totally and completely screwed.

Which brings me to

  1. My first two reasons for retiring made the decision almost inevitable. But I had also been gripped by this sense of impending doom. The economy had been expanded into a dangerously thin soap bubble. The government agencies that keep us safe, fed and healthy were being politicized and gutted from within. I just thought something bad was going to happen and I didn’t want to be alone in New York juggling my business, personal and financial obligations when it did. I just wanted to be able to curl up in bed and hunker down with my family if something went wrong. And it did. And here I am. I made it out just in time.
36

I know thought of that too :flushed:

37

I’m so relieved to see someone else articulate this. I retired in mid January. Shortly thereafter, my mother fell ill and she died on Feb. 12. I spent the next month clearing out her house. I had one dinner with friends and a lunch with some co-workers during that time. The day after I took the last box to Goodwill, the stay-at-home order came. Like you, I never got the chance to figure out how to be retired. Suddenly, I was in my house alone with no friends or co-workers to interact with and it was disorienting. I was alternately depressed and angry that I had worked all my life to get to this point and this is what I ended up with. And I felt guilty for those feelings because I knew so many people had it so much worse.

And, like you, I retired early and feel like I made it out just in time. I was able to deal with my mother’s death and all that comes with that without having to worry about work, and then I didn’t have to deal with all the problems working would have been during the lockdown. So my response to all of this is kind of schizophrenic. I’m glad it worked out with those things but it sucks that I feel so disconnected from everything now.

I really struggled for the first couple months. I’m doing better now, in part I think, because I’ve finally accepted that this is the way it’s going to be for maybe a year or more. I’m not waiting for things to get better “in a couple weeks”. That’s made it easier to plan and get things done in daily life. This is my retirement, like it or not, and I’ve got to make the best of it.

38

The Daughter’s COVID test came back negative!

:partying_face:

~VOW

39

Good news!

40

Very good news, @VOW.