Wednesday, April 1

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

In many ways, today almost could have passed for a normal day, but for the awareness that things aren't normal right now.

I went to my riding lesson, and was upset that there were quite a few people at the barn. One person, who does a lot of training, was in the barn with three horses, and there are only six tie stalls. That means that everyone else in the barn had to be close together, instead of spaced out like we were asked. I was not happy that the trainer was still in the barn when lessons were taking place, because all of the rest of us were told that the barn was closed during lesson times to reduce the number of people. I was also not happy that a group jumping lesson was still taking place right after me, so there were in total about six people in the barn, when we've all bent over backwards to meet the owner's requests that we make appointments and not bring extra people into the barn etc. the rest of the week. I think this needs to be fixed, but again, it's not like the barn owner is an easy person to talk with.

Decent lesson; River still fidgets a lot in collection with his head, instead of just carrying himself, so we worked on that. He was actually much better in the work that we did after the lesson while the next group was setting up jumps.

I went straight to the airport to pick up my sweetie after the lesson, and I actually timed it very well so he didn't have to sit and wait there. It's wonderful to see him again, after almost three weeks since he was home for a single day, and about six weeks before that. It's been a terribly lonely stretch. He's supposed to be home for about two weeks, and then on to another job with more normal days off, but I kind of think it would be better for all of us if he could stay home for a while.

We picked up a few fresh groceries (in and out, and he stayed in the car), and I was finally able to buy toilet paper! I stuck to a very sane single pack of 12 rolls. We were down to about three rolls at home, and my sweetie brought two from his apartment where he was working. We're set for a while now.

Having a nice bath, some quiet nap time, and working on a drawing inspired by Yellena James.

Overall, this COULD have been a fairly normal day for me, except for the ongoing fear of exposing myself to the virus, being constantly aware of distances between people, how empty the streets and the grocery store and the airport were compared to normal, and my stress at how many people were in the barn.

As I'm sure all of us are feeling, I'm feeling very tired from the constant concern over being too close to others, trying to stay home as much as possible, and wondering if we will ever go back to hugging people or shaking hands or standing close to anyone.

As a plus, it seems like right now animal adoptions are really high, likely because people have the time to finally go get a pet they've been craving, and likely because of so much isolation. I sincerely hope that all of these animals are going to good forever homes that will continue to value and care for them even when things are less isolating.