Our household has been diligently observing isolation precautions. ED works from home and ventures out for grocery shopping every 10 days or so. Mike makes an occasional jaunt to Home Depot but is quickly in and out. The highlight of my week is picking up Starbucks at the mobile orders counter on Sunday morning. All of these including two necessary medical appointments are completed with masks and thorough hand washing. Any guests have remained outdoors, socially distanced, and BYOE (bring your own everything). Needless to say, after nine weeks of shelter-in-place, tempers are fragile.
Although I don’t mind staying home, being locked down with family is, for all of us, challenging and alleviated by our large house and a very large lot. The greatest hindrance personally has been a torn meniscus checking my physical activity, even basic housework which I am usually willing to avoid. The energy expended to maintain a tidy house filled with shelter-in-place teens and a dog depletes me for several hours. Pain is the price I pay if I try to take a walk around the block. Hiking is out of the question. Even tooling around in the pool exacts a price.
Like Jim Gaffigan, I dream of a return to precedented times. As much as I would like to see this isolation concluded and the pandemic conquered, I am looking forward even more to some freedom from physical discomfort. What will that look like for my fitness? A knee that doesn’t hurt freeing me to walk, hike, swim, and bicycle. And yes, to do housework without thought.
Those of us of a certain age know this: life is more like a roller coaster than a merry-go-round. Unprecedented events startle us awake as we hover at the peak of a precipice with barely time to remember to breathe before plummeting to. . . what?
I am not concerned about the known: the scheduled D and C biopsy, the knee surgery, the mammogram, the ENT appointment, possible eye infection. I am more apprehensive about the unprecedented event with its aftermath and recovery lurking in wait.
