We’re now well into the brave new world of pandemic ruining the planet, America “ascending” to #1, as in, being the country that’s most been most devastated by coronavirus and had the highest afflicted/death toll in the world, and pretty much everyone in the world has been advised to stay inside, avoid other people, and generally hunker down and hope for everything to eventually blow over.
Cabin fever, has perpetually been viewed as one of the biggest obstacles for Americans across the country, and it’s no more evident than whenever I do go out (pediatrician appointments, picking up takeout meals), that there are always people out and about, taking walks or jogging, more than ever. Seriously, a running joke that myself and many people out there have, are that we’re all seeing people in our own neighborhoods that we’d never seen before, because people are mostly recluses to begin with, but forced into situations where they are discouraged from wasting time elsewhere, they feel the itch to waste time at home, even if it means being seen by their neighbors.
It kind of defeats the purpose of social distancing, but Americans have always been shit about following directions in the first place. Although going on walks and jogging is a pathetic bending of a rule that isn’t going to help, things could be worse, so I guess it’s mostly a “fuck it, let them have that” kind of compromise, although I have heard of more draconian areas in the country that have police willing to write tickets for those not properly practicing social distancing.
Personally, cabin fever hasn’t really hit mythical wife and I, because the vast majority of our days have been overwhelmingly consumed by the whole, now we’re parents thing. I highly recommend popping out a newborn and raising it, if you’re feeling anxious about the way the world is now; I assure anyone that it most definitely is effective at taking their mind off of the inability to go out and do things, and that there’s absolutely no feeling of having too much time on your hands.
As it stands, since I’m working remotely, I actually feel like I work more now that I’m doing it from home, than I do when I’m at the office. In fact, I feel like a lot of my reports and a lot of my peers in general are doing similarly, mostly on account of the fact that they all feel like they need to prove that they’re working, and subsequently actually become more productive than not. I’m glued to my work machine for full work days, and by the time I log off, it’s the start of the evening, and we’re on a general cycle of feeding and changing the baby and then suddenly it’s 10 pm, and I need to start thinking about the next work day.
There are people out there who are complaining about how they’ve watched “everything” on Netflix already and are thinking of what streaming service to subscribe to next in order to find more fresh new content to watch; I’ve barely watched any television at all over the last few weeks. The only things that I’ve really seen are when mythical wife is on pumping/feeding duty and I’m hanging out for support, and she’s been watching stuff like Great British Baking Show or Crash Landing On You.
I catch up with my wrestling through YouTube bootleg consolidated highlight videos, and in an ironic twist, since coronavirus has basically cancelled every sporting body from baseball, March Madness, XFL to the Olympics, I don’t have to feel any anxiety of falling out of the know when it comes to current sports.
But speaking of irony, in spite of the devastation across the globe coronavirus has inflicted, it’s given both mythical wife and I, a tremendous amount of time for us to spend with our newborn baby, and actually learn to be parents. Such would likely not be the case if not for a pandemic going on, as at some point one or both of us would have to begin going back to our respective on-site jobs, and then the dread of separation anxiety would ultimately take place.
We had a conversation the other night that if that were the case, then our child would actually have to begin going to daycare, like very soon. Our barely one-month old baby, already begin entrusted into the hands of strangers; licensed trained professionals sure, but still strangers in the grand spectrum of things, and most definitely not under the care of mom and dad.
As she was premature, she’s not even to her original due date, and we would have had to hand her off to daycare, not to mention start paying the second mortgage that is their tuition? Sounds like a colossal bomb of oh hell no, that we wouldn’t want to have to go through now, that the effects of coronavirus are actually protecting us from having to deal with, ironically.
No, I’m not ready for that just yet. Six weeks after birth feels ridiculous for me, much less any parent, to have to go back to work and forfeit the raising of their children to someone other than themselves. I’m still at the stage where I can still stare wistfully at my child while she’s sleeping and be awed and marveled at the notion that I helped create this beautiful tiny human being, and it’s my pleasure and responsibility to know of the challenge of raising her, hopefully positively.
It still hasn’t entirely sunk in that when I look in the mirror, I’m looking at a dad. I’m now a guy that can take part in Father’s Days, and that the stereotype of me is that I’m someone who makes bad jokes and wants power tools and grill and grill accessories all the time; I mean that’s kind of how I’d been living well before the presence of children, but now I get to make it official.
But I am familiarizing myself with the notion of unconditional love, and the fact that it hit me like an atom bomb as soon as I laid eyes on my kid when she was brought into the world. Sure, I knew it before then, but seeing is believing, and I spent either an inordinate, or an ordinary for a new parent, amount of time watching her and absorbing as much of this love and care that I feel. Dirty diapers or cries that we haven’t deciphered doesn’t annoy or upset me, and nothing has changed in the fact that I want nothing more than to be a good dad.
So ironically, I kind of have to be a little grateful that coronavirus has body slammed the world into its current state. I’m getting a lot of house money time to be at home with my kid, and while mythical wife is still on maternity time before she too is under state-ordered lockdown, we are getting to soak in being new parents and spending all the time in the world with our baby.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is still being ravaged by it, no more worse that good ‘ol ‘Murica. I swear, it feels like that M. Night Shyamalan movie The Happening where it was always beautiful and peaceful looking outside, but everyone was afraid to go outside because the plants were releasing a suicide toxin that was making people kill themselves. I bet any newborn parents of that fictional setting all survived the film, though.
