What Day is it?

It's a weird realization when the only way one day is different from the others, is by the word printed on the pill organizer you flap open daily. Each day is the same - a blank slate for me to draw on.

I've been voluntarily sheltering in place since March 12 - that's 96 days - a time when it seemed the best thing to do, given the spread of COVID-19. We canceled our nostalgia trip to Munich (our home 26 years ago), that was to have begun that day, and instead went grocery shopping (using precautions) to restock the fridge we'd been emptying in anticipation of our time away. 

I have visited the store for supplies a total of 4 times in those 96 days, each time taking serious precautions. The vigilance required for such an outing is exhausting.

I have not visited any other building - not a friend's home, a doctor's office, library, nor post office in that time. We have occasionally encountered our neighbor outside, and have quickly caught up with him, standing way more than 6 feet apart to converse briefly. I haven't had to fill my car up with gas yet, either.

The only other contact I've had with the outside world was the day we had a fridge delivered. I stayed upstairs during the delivery, and wiped all counters and surfaces clean after the crew had gone. It was decidedly unnerving to have other people breathing in our space!

I've had a few Zoom meetings on my calendar, but without patterns and cycles in my days and weeks as reference points, I've inadvertently missed attending some of them. I was thrown off one weekend when a neighbor's car arrived on a Thursday evening for a weekend at their camp instead of their usual Friday arrival. In my mind, Friday then became Saturday, and Saturday was Sunday ... I was quite discombobulated!

Well, it's time to start drawing on today's blank slate ...