490 days have passed since the last blog entry and the world is...different. Some of you got married, some had sons and daughters, and others lost dear ones closest to them.
And then the NBA suspended their season. That’s how I’ll remember this COVID-19 timeline. It was overblown until it wasn’t—and the NBA suspension woke me up.
So here we are, hunkered down in our Hollywood bungalow, and I’ve cobbled together a survival kit. I’ll open it up and show you what’s inside but first let me talk about what I’ll call The Other Crap I’m carrying.
I wouldn’t say I’m the pinnacle of mental health on my best days, so my emotional pendulum has swung wildly during this virus outbreak. I’ve gone from abject fear to calm acceptance and back again—sometimes within the hour. I haven’t slept a night in a month without waking up at 3am and when I do, my brain tells me it’s time to check the news and look at the COVID map...again.
To make matters worse, I had a fever of about 100 degrees for three or four days. If I took my temperature once, I took it four hundred times a day. 101 was my threshold—if I crossed 101, I promised I’d head to the hospital.
Here’s The Other Crap: Needing Tylenol, I walked down to the grocery store. (Rest assured, I wore a N95 mask and gloves—benefits of working in fire loss assessment. And double-rest assured, I kept 2 masks for my wife and me and donated the rest to the hospital).
My mind went through all the worst case scenarios. My best plan formulated on the walk to the grocery store: We’d leave everything here in SoCal and flee in the night before things got out of control. Drive back east. Put everything on credit cards I had no intention of paying back, since the banking system surely was weeks away from collapsing, right? Tylenol, full tank of gas, flee in the night. Got it.
Masked and gloved, I stumbled into the grocery store. People jammed every aisle and register. This was the first weeks of stockpile-purchasing, where TP became worth its weight in gold.
Bumping through a sea of people, you could smell the panic in the crowd. I made it over to the medicine aisle, and everyone there was cleaning it out. They grabbed fistfuls of OTC medicine. The line to the shelf was five people deep. I felt a panic attack coming on. All I needed was one bottle of Tylenol.
I looked at the cashier line. Thirty people deep around the perimeter of the store. I did the math—twenty minutes, one bottle of Tylenol, and then I could go back home.
And then I decided: Fuck it. I’ll come back tomorrow.
I couldn’t believe my own thoughts. Here I was, head pounding with what I hadn’t ruled out was the Coronavirus coursing through me, I was freaked out that society was breaking down before my eyes, I was ready to make the all-night road trip to the East Coast to finish it out with family...and my best solution was I’LL COME BACK TOMORROW?!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is The Other Crap I carry. Call it negative thinking, pessimism, PTSD, anxiety, lazy, or plain old fucked-up-in-the-head. Whatever it’s called, I got it. And I’m gonna drag it with me to the bitter end.
But there’s a spiritual lesson in this. As I walked back up the hill towards home (without the Tylenol. I mean, I’m not kidding about this, people!), I beat myself up for laziness and letting fear of the crowd get to me. I berated myself for not having the balls to push people down and grab what I needed. Then something occurred to me. Do you know that saying, “Wherever you go, there you are?” Never was this clearer to me. Who I am—the good, the bad, and the ugly—will follow me down to the end.
If I know that, it seems so much easier to forgive and let go. I mean, talk about powerlessness. If fear and anxiety keep me from getting what I need, maybe I needn't follow them up with a character assassination.
So I’m still swinging from fear to faith and back again—as I’m sure many of you are. But along with The Other Crap, I’m carrying my Apocalypse Survival Kit. This kit is for my physical, mental, and spiritual survival. Break Glass In Case of Emergency:
1. Physical exercise. This is a mood stabilizer, according to, you know, EVERYONE.
2. I make a daily vow not to add to anyone’s (including my own) fear, anxiety, or anger. This means not treating the news like gossip, maintain friendliness in grocery store lines, on the phone, and in the thousands of Zoom meetings I’m in for social and business purposes.
3. Hobbies. When we went into the Safer-at-Home self-quarantine, I’ll admit no one needed to teach me to how to play games and entertain myself. But what I needed to remember is that it’s okay to have fun and to continue my “normal life” things. I can’t spend every moment in fear of the future, or I’ll go mad. P.S., I made a recent switch — cardboard for digital games. Cards, board games, and online RPGs have been a way to slow my fearful thoughts down in a way that staring at a screen can’t. Your mileage may vary.
4. Reuters. Take this or leave it, but Reuters, for me, is less click chum and fear-mongering. I don’t need the mongering—the situation is fearful enough. I can get the facts and get out. I don’t want the editorial. Even if I agree with it. It’s a pitch-dark neighborhood I best not walk around alone.
5. Reaching Out. I’ve been going through my phone and calling or texting the people I love. Zoom or FaceTime with others. This isn’t the time for me to isolate. I can still stay connected while keeping physical distance.
6. COVID-19 Gratitude List. This one’s been amazing. Every day, I think about and text to a friend what the Coronavirus has brought to my life that’s good. Sounds fucked up, I know, especially knowing we will lose loved ones, and the numbers will grow. But the virus has brought me:
A hard look at my fear and anger around death.
An in-my-face reality on my spending and under-earning.
A spiritual alignment with what’s important to me and what’s a waste of my time.
An opportunity to tell loved ones what they mean to me. I don’t have to regret not telling them after it's too late.
And the Coronavirus has brought me to a renewed relationship with my creativity and writing. I’ve been absent from this blog for a LOOOONNNGGG time. I'll tell you more on why later. (Spoiler alert: the reasons are the same as what drives the writing--fighting fear, depression, low self-worth! Woo hoo!)
For those of you that write, you know firsthand it’s excruciating pain to lie dormant for 490 days without writing. This crisis brought things back into focus. For too long, I’ve tied up my writing with career aspirations, what this piece would bring, what important people are going to read it, blah, blah, blah, and I’d lost my path. COVID-19 gave me the gift of remembering why I want to express myself and what it means to share vulnerability with readers.
So I am coming back to this blog. Weekly. Every Monday. And I won't worry about the results.
I’m hoping I can have the same mindset with our current situation. I want to keep showing up, one day at a time, help other people as best I can, and keep open to learning—even in the fear and stress.
I’d love to hear your Survival Techniques in the comments below, and I hope it helped you to hear me unload my Survival Kit on you. Sure beats the hell out me unloading The Other Crap on you. :)