Corona Diaries: Week 7

Week 7

I’m ready for everyone to go away now. 

Just please can everyone go away for like two hours a day. 

That’s all I need. I promise I will put it to good use. I mean I’ll probably watch like 20 minutes of some terrible reality show that I just can’t shake, but that’s it. I swear I’ll be productive. Or not. But I want the chance to find out. 

Listen, I’m happy to do the cleaning and the cooking and the laundry. I’ve been a stay home slave for years now-I’m used to it. I’m happy to help with the schoolwork, I’m happy to nag about the daily Zoom schedule, I’m happy to see only blank faces stare back at me when I say things like-Anybody want to play a game? Jesus, I’m even happy to be the constant audience that Daughter so desires for basically…anything…she does all day. Mom! Watch me do a cartwheel. Mom! Watch me ride my bike. Mom! Watch me watch this show. Mom! Watch me breath. 

It’s fine. It really is. 

But can they just please go away for two hours? 

(I’m willing to negotiate to one hour.)

And I don’t mean go to your rooms and become one with your device.

I mean go away. Leave this house. Let me be alone.

You remember how when the kids were little and you would sneak off to pee in the hopes of having one moment to yourself and the second your ass hit that seat you would hear….Mama?? 

That is quarantine. I just want to pee by myself and I can’t. Ever.

It doesn’t even make sense that I can’t seem to find the time to take care of things besides the aforementioned slaving because all there is is time. So much time. We’ve been told our entire lives that there are 24 hours in a day but in the time of Corona, however, it seems that there are 24 hours between lunch and dinner alone. Which makes each day at least 107 hours long. In all of those 107 hours I should be able to find just one or god forbid two where I can….I don’t even know, people. I don’t know what it is I want to do. I can’t remember stuff we used to do. I just want them to go away so I can then discover what it is I will do. Because every time I start to do a thing for myself, my ass hits the seat and all I hear is…Mama? 

The fatigue of this quarantine is settling in pretty strong now. Along with some strange “new normal” is the growing longing for some semblance of our old lives to come back. Just a glimmer of the old ordinary would sooth these restless souls. How I long to plop down a chair and a blanket at the beach; to bounce from game to game over the weekend; to be The Children’s unpaid Uber driver; to go on a date to the movies; to have Target be fun again. Of course I can’t wait to go on a vacation or plan a trip to see my family or head to a Dodger game but all I really want right now is the most benign of normal to begin again. 

And to be alone in my house. For one hour.