My time on social media has been drastically reduced because I simply can’t mentally process anymore.
As an example, three days ago, I heard the governor designate my county as a “hot spot” for COVID-19, and then, moments later, I read a statement from our health department, and it seems as if 11 of the 21 people confirmed already have been released from treatment, and only three are hospitalized. So … am I to believe that this is under control, or are we waiting for round two?
It’s too much information coming from too many sources. We are led to believe we are out of the woods, and then a woman I know points out that her county has just positively confirmed its first two cases, so which is it?
For me, the more I read about how this was blown out of proportion, the antsier I get. We floated through the stay-at-home order and handled that as well as we could, but now I’m anxious because I want to know how much longer this will last. Will my kids go back to school this year? (That’s the main source of my uneasiness, by the way). And then I wonder how my anxiety has been held at bay until now as we’re nearing the end of this.
What’s Next?
The future causes me more anxiety than the present, and I have a hard time landing that, to be honest.
My kids and I have entertained visions of our neighborhood resembling a Broadway musical when the stay-at-home order is lifted. We laugh as we picture our neighbors, all running outside with their arms wide open, faces to the sun, holding hands and dancing in a circle to some catchy tune about how the sun is shining after the storm. If nothing else, those images have been a great form of stress relief and have brought with them belly laughs. And belly laughs tamp down the anxiety for a minute or two, and yet ….
I can’t shake the feeling that we’re about to be standing in the intersection of what’s-always-been vs. what-could-be, and I hope that we don’t allow ourselves to be sold a line of crap that we’ve made it through this because we’re the greatest country in the world. The truth is that we made it through this despite thinking that we were the greatest country in the world, and we have had the ugliest parts of ourselves exposed; so what’s next? What the hell do we do when the bootstrap maker is a non-essential business?
We’ve gone from being a country that is quick to declare that minimum-wage workers aren’t deserving of a $15 per-hour wage yet rely on those very same people to be on the frontlines in a pandemic so we can buy toilet paper. We raise hell about how “Medicare For All” won’t work and then praise the government for providing free tests because they know people can’t afford them. We’ve gone from pointing fingers at people who receive government assistance to checking our bank accounts for that stimulus check.
We’re suddenly hyper aware of how important Safety Net programs are because we’re finding ourselves in need of them because of no fault of our own. Read that again: because of no fault of our own.
Assistance
We’re relying on feeding programs through schools and unemployment benefits, not because we did something wrong but because the system shut down our ability to care for ourselves as we’re used to doing, which is what I’ve been saying about the system and poor people for years.
While I read about people freaking out because they don’t know how – or if – they’ll be able to recover from this, I am biting my tongue because that’s how poor folks feel all the time. You know, those feelings of panic that you won’t have enough of something that you desperately need? Poor people have those feelings all the time. The uncertainty that comes with not being able to pay your bills and choosing which bills have to be paid and which ones can slide? Yep, you guessed it … poor people do that all the time.
Not knowing what to do when you can’t pay your rent? Having to stand in a food pantry line and feeling defeated and embarrassed? Yep and yep, imagine spending your life in that struggle.
And yet, the little extras that the government is being praised for, such as an additional $600 for West Virginians applying for unemployment, are causing stress for working poor folks who have to wonder whether they’ll qualify for SNAP with that one time gift. Will it help them in the long run or make it more difficult? And there are the private contractors who can’t seem to publicly get an answer about when, how, and/or if they will even qualify for unemployment. Suddenly, people who have never had to rely on government assistance are being force fed the reality of how bogged down, jacked up, and “unfair” the system operates.
Hopefully, the stark reality of what our lives have been like for the past two months will be stronger than the attitude of the government will do what they want and we don’t have a say in it. Hearing our governor say that one million meals have been given out to WV citizens was sobering for me, and the reality that so many of us are struggling because we’ve missed one or two paychecks is sickening. And it’s time that we stop playing this left vs. right game and start playing the get-it-right-or-be-left-out-of-office card. If corporations and the government can find a way to throw us all a life vest during times such as these then we need to demand they fix the problems that make us need a life vest in the first place. It’s time we start talking about how to turn our pain into power.
Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Stay well. And start thinking about how we’re all gonna manage the bootstrap shortage when this is over.
Onward,
Amy Jo
