Family Fun Time: Quarantine Edition

Family Fun Time: Quarantine Edition

Family movie nights.  Family dinner nights.  Family walks.  Family bike rides.  Family “clean the house” nights.  Definitely not family trips to the supermarket, but definitely family discussions around the dinner table.  Family.  Family.  Family. 

The last time my family was this together, we were all at least five years younger and I don’t think my brother had yet started shaving.  Now one of us is in eighth grade, one of us is a senior in college, and one of us is, for now, gainfully employed, and yet here we are, together again.  The nuclear family has returned to its ancestral homeland: suburban New Jersey.

The coronavirus has done many things.  It has highlighted the flaws in the U.S healthcare system.  It has created extreme financial uncertainty, and it has wiped the nation clean of its toilet paper.  When the virus first leapt into the public conscious it was a problem for China.  Specifically, it was a problem for elderly Chinese males.  I remember a phone call with my mom in which I jokingly said, “Don’t worry about me, I’m immune.”  At the time, I was walking from my office, in Midtown Manhattan to my apartment in downtown Manhattan.  I have not been to either location in over four weeks.

Next, it was a problem for Italy.  But that made sense.  They have the oldest population in Europe, and, as we all like to tell ourselves, everybody smokes there.  It was sad, how could it not be, a developed country should not be deciding who lives and who dies based off factors such as age and medical history, but it was still an ocean away.  It was not yet our reality, and not yet our problem. 

Then came the reality.  My office went from “concerned employees can work from home if they so choose” on a Thursday to “our office is closed, safety is of the utmost importance, please stay home” on a Sunday.  On March 13^th, New York City had less than five-hundred confirmed cases, by March 16^th, that number was over one-thousand, and it was decided that I would pack up my belongings in my brand-new Manhattan apartment and temporarily move back to Bergen County.  Just about fifteen miles away from the city, my hometown is still very much so at the center of the outbreak, but at least there I would be with my family, and, most importantly, my dog. 

Weeks have passed.  New York City is now the worldwide epicenter of the Coronavirus.  My tiny borough of roughly 4,000 people has lost its first resident.  Bergen County leads New Jersey in Coronavirus cases and deaths.  More and more you hear about young, healthy people succumbing to the disease.  The reality hits that this is something that could very much so happen to me, to the people I love, and you feel the fear settle into the pit of your stomach.  The randomness and the uncertainty of it all makes you want to throw up or scream (or both), and yet, amidst this uncertainty, the randomness, the chaos, we find ourselves falling into the familiar pattern of routines.

On nice days, we go for walks.  It seems like the whole town is outside.  There’s something comforting about leaving your front door and knowing you will run into at least three people you know on a first name basis.  Someone you graduated high school with but haven’t seen in a few years.  Your younger brother’s best friend from childhood.  Your middle school gym teacher.  My dad says that it reminds him of the seventies.  Kids riding bikes, less traffic, friendly conversation with the neighbors.  It feels like a return to those good old-fashioned American values politicians are always talking about, but why did it take a global pandemic to get us here? 

On days when the weather is bad, the fear takes a firmer hold.  Stuck inside, we get on each other’s nerves.  Why can’t my sister use headphones while watching incessant Tik Tok videos?  Why can’t my brother clean his room?  Why can’t I help with something technology related?  The list goes on.  In theory, this would be a great time to get things done, to finally clean up my room and box up the rest of my belongings, so it actually looks like I moved out, but what’s the point of doing so when I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to my apartment?  Is it possible that I’m going to be back in New Jersey long term?  I shudder to think, and yet, on rainy days, there’s nothing to do but to think (and I suppose eat, there’s certainly been a lot of eating going on).

We will get through this, of that I am certain, but there will be casualties.  Every day we see more Facebook and Instagram in memoriam posts.  Comments and well wishes are the closest their loved ones will get to a funeral.  All you can really do is hope that it spares you, spares the people you love, and that the light at the end of the tunnel will come sooner rather than later.  You recognize the old cliché, that we truly are connected as you talk with friends and family across the country and across the world.  Everyone says the same thing “hope you’re staying safe.”  You wonder what will happen when this is all over.  Will people remember how nice it was to walk through their neighborhood without any real destination, just for the sake of walking?  Will you heed what you told yourself several times over throughout this quarantine and develop a greater appreciation for all the freedoms you took for granted?  The freedom to go to work in an office, to ride the subway, to go to the grocery store, to shake a stranger’s hand.  From my (albeit limited) experience with human nature, I’m not so sure.

I don’t know if this has given me a newfound appreciation for my family because I like to think that I’ve always appreciated my family, but it has allowed me to view them in a new light.  Like many little girls, I’ve always seen my father as unflappable, and yet when he came to pick me up from the city, I could tell that he was nervous about the state of our corner of the world.  But he still did it.  He still went to a place teeming with disease to pick his daughter up and bring her home, because that’s what dad’s do.  I’ve always known that my mom was a hardworking teacher, but now that she’s teaching virtually from home, I see just how hard she works for her students.  While I’m scrolling through the news, waiting for one of my colleagues to respond to an email, she’s watching tutorials on how to use Google Classroom and researching ways to keep her students engaged and educated from the comforts of their own homes.  My sister has been using her time on Tik Tok as research for new art projects and recently made a beautiful butterfly mobile that now hangs over her bed.  I’ve never really thought of my brother as a particularly diligent student, but he’s sure been talking a lot about how he’s worried virtual schooling will affect his GPA because he’s always been reliant on meeting with professors during office hours.  We’re all struggling to adapt to this new normal, but we are adapting. 

At the end of the day, as much as I miss my apartment and miss my friends in the city, there’s no group of people I’d rather be sticking this out with than my family.  We may be driving each other crazy, but there’s a comfort in knowing that no matter how crazy we make each other, at the end of the night, we still expect to eat dinner together or to settle into a movie or an episode of The Office.  These are scary times, and I’m not too proud to admit that I know I’m best off spending them in the comfort of my childhood home with my mom and my dad and, by far most important, my dog. 

Ellie, who has played the greatest role in maintaining my sanity.