Observe and report

At least my footwear is fancy.

Dear COVID-19,

We’ve been living with you for about a year. You’re a terrible roommate. You’ve affected the health of 115 million people, killing 2.56 million of us.

You’ve negatively affected almost everyone’s mental health. (I’d like to meet someone who has not been affected.)

I know you’ve affected mine. I’m an extrovert who likes to travel, so …

Here is the truth:

I am not an indoor cat.

I never wanted to be a housewife.

I did not choose to be a stay-at-home mom.

I think it is important to be honest about the situation you’ve put us in. We all tend to put a brave face on things, but let’s not.

Let’s pull back the curtain to see the man behind it.

Things I’ve normalized that I do not want to have normalized:

• Doing laundry on my lunch break.
• Wearing glasses almost always because of all the screen time I’ve had this year.
• Putting on eye makeup if going out, but not lipstick.
• Putting on lipstick if staying in, but not eye makeup. (No one can tell behind the glasses from Point 2.)
• Wearing pants without zippers.
• Accepting slippers as my primary footwear.
• Understanding that I will have a harder time finding energy on cloudy days.
• Recognizing that a change of scenery means answering emails from the kitchen instead of the living room.
• Lamenting the lack of privacy. (High school from home for the boys = I’m never alone!)
• Having to look at my phone to figure out what day it is.
• Sitting all day.
• Not seeing people in human form.

These are small issues compared to loss of life noted above, but they are still issues.

The bottom line: It’s not fun to have you around.

It’s time for you to leave.

As they say in the South, “Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.”

Sincerely,
Beth (and everyone else in the world)