Like most of the world, I’m home. Sitting at my kitchen table while my son watches TV in the next room and my husband works from the basement, we’re making the best of our new normal. It’s been just over four weeks since COVID-19 surged into our community like water flowing over a dam. In those 30-odd days we’ve gone from “let’s wait and see” about our upcoming travel plans to living in a shuttered city — no bars, restaurants, movie theaters, performing arts venues, sports, playgrounds, or other non-essential locales open to the public. It all happened so fast, and yet those “wait and see” days feel so long ago.
When it was announced that my son’s school would be closed — first for a week, then two, now…who knows — I expected it to be hard. I knew this new reality would be a massive adjustment for my family, and I figured there would be stress, tears, and the occasional argument. What I didn’t anticipate was the overwhelming, all-consuming fatigue that would envelope me like a shroud. Over the past three weeks, I’ve found myself exhausted by mid-morning. At first, I assumed it was simply the usual mid-day slump, something a bit of caffeine could fix.
But this fatigue is deeper. It hasn’t gone away.
In fact, it’s gotten worse by the day.
