Monday, March 23

[gottawonder]

The last few days have been really tough emotionally.

To sum it up, these are strange times and my normal routine is shattered, and the normal coping mechanisms that I have for staying busy and creating situations for social interaction are gone.

Two weeks ago, and I don't think my life was too affected. A week ago, things started getting real here. Mostly because of everything closing and everyone going home, and there being not much for food on the shelves.

I haven't been able to do pottery this winter, and now the studio is putting off opening because of the virus.

The gym I started going to is now closed.

Up until now, the riding barn was unaffected, but this week we now have restrictions on riding, so that no more than two people can be in the barn at a time, and we have to make appointments to ride, with strict rules about being finished and tack put away before the next people arrive. I know that the barn owner is doing her best, and I don't fault her. She's hoping that the law doesn't shut down the barn all together.

So far, our province has done very little to help people in these trying times. Other provinces have issued a "no evictions" policy, to protect people from being homeless while they are sent home from jobs without any promise of when they will get another paycheck, not Alberta yet. Canada does have unemployment insurance, but it takes a while for that to come through, and the end of the month and rent will likely come before any income support. Our province is insane for not issuing a no evictions policy, or for issuing deferral of utility bills and mortgage and loans.

I fear that the real pandemic is going to be the economic fallout from everyone being out of work. I know that most people won't be able to buy more groceries in a month, if support doesn't help them. If things don't improve in the U.S., we could have problems getting all kinds of products. Most of our fresh food in the winter, most of our processed food, and even most meat (Canada doesn't even process many of our own animals, they all get shipped live to the U.S. and come back as various products). Canada produces grain and meat, but doesn't process them into flour etc. Crazy.

I am worn to a frazzle being alone for so long. My sweetie has now been away for nine weeks, with only one day at home in that time. What's mentally very hard about this, is not even really having a date for when he's coming home. Officially, he just comes home when the job is done, in this case. He's now trying to get home at the end of the week, but that's still only if his manager allows him to leave. If his manager doesn't allow him to leave, he would either just keep working, or be forced to quit, which we don't really want.

In theory, if he gets permission to leave this job, he'd just come home for awhile, and then go work on the next project when things settle down enough.

I worry that if he doesn't come home, they're going to close the provincial borders and he's going to get trapped there.

Basically, things are strange, I'm worried, life feels uncertain right now, and I would feel better if he were home.