I’m going to grumble & be crotchety for a brief moment. I just have to get it out of my system, and then I’m going to be filled with hope. Because grumbling & crotchety-ness make things worse, not better. I’m all about making things better. Happier.

Once I accepted the lockdown, the social isolation, I had my freakout (to be honest, I still do at least once a day). Then I got serious about nobody but me and my people. No extra’s. No visits. No playdates, and I’m talking about me! Not my kids. I’ve even stopped going to the store. I have enough. Maybe not for all eternity, but I do for the next several weeks. I may get tired of rice & beans, but I will not starve. I will not leave the house.

My cousin shared a video (see below). It’s a little math-y, a little scary, but it is also full of hope. It’s all about how social distancing can work. And this is where I get grumbly & crotchety. Social distancing is not working. Not yet. The vast majority of my friends, family and neighbors are treating social distancing as vacation.

Coronacation. They even have a word for it!

So many people are hanging out together. At the park. At bars. In private homes. There are playdates happening. All those germs. All those people are still mingling. Those germs are mingling. Infecting people left & right. This virus has plenty of food to grow.

The numbers are growing astronomically, pretty much like the video below. It’s truly frightening. At this rate, without proper social distancing, we will all know someone who gets sick. Who dies. Not necessarily from COVID-19, but from another illness or emergency. Another illness or emergency our health care system couldn’t treat. They had no more room.

The pure selfishness of people still traveling, celebrating milestones, gathering in each others living rooms is filling me with gloom, dispair and anger. I was also angry about the toilet paper hoarding. I jumped right on that bandwagon. And then, that hoarding? All the other hoarding? That gave me hope.

People are hoarding. They are stocking up. They are getting ready to hunker down. Shelter-in-place they call it. It means staying home. Making do with what you have and, more importantly who you have. The people in our home right now, in your home right now, these are our people. Our battle buddies. Together we are going to weather this storm & slow this beast.

All the hoarding means that everyone with enough toilet paper is going to STAY HOME! They are not going to spread a single germ. A single virus. They won’t be a carrier. They won’t pass it to even one more person. They will stay home and let this beast starve. Everyone with all that toilet paper is going to stay home and give us all a chance to beat this beast.

There is hope. There is so much hope.