March 27, 2020

It is early Friday morning as I begin to write this. I tried to go to sleep early tonight, but it did not work out too well. I have had trouble getting to sleep since this whole Covid-19 mess started. Once I get to sleep, I am fine. I sleep hard and wake up tired. But getting to sleep is hard. My anxiety is ramped up worrying about this nasty little virus that is spreading across the world. I have never liked virus outbreak movies, but now I find myself living in one. We all are. And sometimes I think we forget this is actually happening, that it is real and not a work of bad fiction by a Hollywood writer. More on that later.

We are all told to socially distance ourselves. Some of us are under a Stay At Home order. South Carolina is not at this point, but that could change soon and probably will. Some towns and cities have set curfews. In the rural part of Lexington county where I live, it is pretty easy to self isolate. Houses are far enough apart tat we are not right on top of our neighbors. Our mail carrier leaves mail in the box at the end of the driveway. When we get stuff delivered by UPS or FedEx, they leave the packages beside the door outside.

Really, I am not having as difficult as a time getting used to this new reality as most folks, I suspect. I made a sardonic post about this last week. The gist of it was, “Welcome to my last five years.” My isolation really began when I moved out to Denton Hill and my truck broke down for good. Before that, I could get out some of when I wanted to. Money was tight, so I had to plan when I might go out and shoot trains. But I still got to go out and shoot trains. I would plan trips to the grocery store for days when I would be out shooting. Or maybe that was the other way around, I'm not sure. After I parked the truck for good, there were often days or weeks I was stuck at the house alone. At least now I have Dish Network, Netflix and a lot of stuff to watch on TV.

I had plans for this week. On Wednesday this week, I had an appointment with my new psychiatrist, my first one actually. I was looking forward to it, hoping I could be on the road to a better recovery. I have mentioned it several times, but my depression has been ramping up since late last year. It kept getting worse, so I talked to my general physician about it and she and I agreed that I needed more help than she could offer. Maybe I needed more meds or a different type of meds. I kept waiting for the doctor's office to call. I wanted to go to that appointment. I am tired of feeling like this. So when I got a call Monday and it was from the office, I knew they were calling to cancel. The office manager said that for new patients, they want an office appointment first. For existing patients, they were going to do it by phone, Skype or Zoom. I felt like I had been just trying to make it to the appointment that now I do not know what to do. We set up a new appointment for April 29th but I doubt things will be back to normal by then.

I had already planned to go railfanning the L&C with a friend for today. But we canceled those plans before the doctor canceled the appointment.

I actually did go out for the second time yesterday since this started. Ir was essential. We needed some things from the grocery store. I think what I have now should last me three weeks or so. That is my basic needs. Food in this hose is not a problem thanks to my roommates. We went to the Walmart Neighborhood Market in Cayce. They had hand sanitizer as you walked in but no wipes for the buggies. (Southern for grocery cart, LOL) An oddity is that you would think they might also have sanitizer as you leave the store, but apparently you are on your own at that point.

The store was better stocked than the Walmart I went to last week in Red Bank. Maybe, hopefully, this means the stores are catching back up with their crazy customers. They were out of some of my comfort food, so I got other comfort food. I will survive. I went over to the toilet paper aisle and they actually had five or six packages. No Scott tissue, which I prefer, but I did pick up a four pack of Charmin. They had hand soap, but no sanitizer, but they did have wipes. What I found odd was that the diaper aisle was stocked full. When I was the parent of two kids that age (eleven months apart) diapers would have been the first thing I stocked up on. I have a lot of old t-shirts if worst came to worst for me. Not to mention you can always find Clemson shirts for sale

Only a few folks were wearing masks. One Asian lady had what looked like one she made herself. A man was wearing one but had it off of his face and on his beard. I guess he felt like he was having trouble breathing with it on. Another man (in one of those motorized scooters) kept pulling his down and then putting it back over his face. SMH I don't like them on my face when I have worn them in the past, but even I know that when you start putting your hands all over the mask defeats the entire purpose of wearing one.

Jerry picked on me about the TP. He reminded me that we went to Sam's before all of this started and stocked up on everything including toilet paper. And I know this to be true. But it made me feel good to buy a pack. It made me feel like I was doing something, accomplishing something. It had been worrying me since this started, the feeling that I needed toilet paper. I didn't want the huge 18 pack. I just wanted one four pack and to be able to breathe better. I bought two more things of soap. Soap and water works great. But when this is all over, I will probably start keeping some sanitizer around just in case.

The main thing I wanted to get today was something for heartburn. It' a basic need for me. I still have a bottle here, but when I run out, trust me, things get ugly around here. I bought two bottles and that should do me for a while. It was nice to get out. Hard to practice social distancing in a store, but everyone did their best. Now I am probably hunkered down for a few weeks

I could not tell anything was different when we were out. There was a lot of traffic on the road. CSX was putting auto racks in at Dixiana transfer yard just like always and young guys were driving the cars out and parking them. People were getting cheap gas. One place had it for $1.39. It seemed like a regular day other than seeing the folks wearing masks out in public. Something about the normalcy of the day bothered me.

I tried to come up with an analogy that I think fits. Something railroady. Like we're all on a train ride. There's no engineer, no one in the locomotive but we're barreling down the track toward a bridge that has been washed out. Then I realized I was mashing up two movies, “Unstoppable” and the third “Back To the Future.” Except that instead of being scared or trying to stop the train, we're singing and laughing and having a grand old time. We're sharing funny memes on Facebook and still arguing over politics or bitching about the lack of sports or shows on Broadway. But that big gap in track is looming in the distance and no one cares that we seem to be doomed. Maybe that makes us the orchestra on the deck of the Titanic.

I feel like no one is really taking this seriously. And maybe the reason is that no one knows what to do. I'm lost. What can I do? I have left the house twice in the last few weeks. It's like I am back living in Lancaster where I didn't leave the house much. I'm watching the news a lot. I am keeping track of the new cases and deaths in America via various websites. It's the new sports and America is leading the charge. And when I have had enough of the news, I will watch something else. I listen to a lot of music. I am finding new artists too keep track of on Spotify. The latest band I found is The Dollyrots. Think The Bangles except they listened to a lot of Green Day and cranked the guitars up. There's K Flay who is a hot white girl that raps like Eminem. I got in Greta Van Fleet who I had heard a lot about but only knew a few songs. Then I rediscovered Kings X from the 90s along with Bad Religion that I had lost touch with. I am not in the orchestra on the deck of the Titanic, but I am sitting there enjoying the show. When the ship starts to get too high in the air, I will find something to hang onto then. Maybe.

Now you might think my depression would be through the roof. And I have had my bad moments over the last few weeks. But it is my anxiety that has really ramped up lately. That is why I can't get to sleep now. I just can't get worst case scenarios out of my head. I wonder when I will catch the virus. It is hard for me to give voice to these thoughts. I can see this fundamentally changing the world as we know it and killing a good swath of us. I have fears of life pretty much ending. I can't get these thoughts and images out of my mind.

I remind myself that diabetes is one of the main conditions many of the dead suffer from. I am certain I will eventually get infected. Why not? I've had sepsis, pneumonia and other viral infections. I beat them all, so my luck being such as it is, it would make perfect sense that I would get Covid-19 and it would be the thing that takes me out.

But I really worry about my kids. They're young, but we are learning now that this virus does not just kill the old and sick. It can kill the young. And even if you survive the infection, and most folks will, as the naysayers like to point out, it can cause complications later. Your lungs are not the same after you recover in many cases.

But I am not just worried about the kids getting sick or dying. I was just a little older than they are now when my mother passed away. I don't want them to suffer that loss. It sticks with you and does not go away to lose someone that close to you. I find myself praying a lot lately. I pray for their health, the health of their mother and grandmother. Then I had to be honest with myself. If I am praying for both their physical and mental health, then I have to pray for their step-father and his family. My dad saw Michael before he died, but Michael was way too young to remember the meeting. Neither, of course, met my mother. But they know his parents and family. So I prayed for everybody. My min hope is that in 20 years, my kids can tell their kids about that time in 2020 when the world beat the hell out of a nasty virus and that it was a small blip in history. That is my main prayer as well as that no one reading this now gets the infection or knows anyone who does

And now it it Friday night as I finish this.