You know that feeling.
Whether you are a kid listening for the radio announcement or an office worker waiting for the email. “Snow Day!” No school. No work. No anything that moves. It doesn’t happen often for most adults, but around here, we can count on it once every winter or so. The ice, snow, or combination of both will make traveling so hazardous that everybody cancels everything.
And, suddenly, we have no decisions to make. Should I got to the grocery store today? Nope. I can’t. Don’t even have to consider it. Can I come up with a good excuse to ignore the party I don’t want to attend tonight? Nope. No worries. It’s cancelled. Everything is cancelled. We can do absolutely nothing except stay snug at home with people we love. (At least I hope you love those people, Dear Reader.)
Of course, even in a snowstorm, the essential workers must find a way out. Doctors, nurses, police officers, snowplow drivers, farmers, and such. Their jobs are not cancelled. Only made harder by the storm. Many of our essential workers have to keep showing up for work even when they have been exposed to the current virus. They pile on the PPE like layers of snow clothes and keep working. Please pray for them.
Covid quarantine is a little like a snow day.
If you should get the call from your local health department, you will be instructed to stay home. Away from everyone. Probably for fourteen days, depending on when you were exposed. Suddenly, no more decisions to make except when to change from your daytime pajamas to your night time pajamas. You are experiencing two-weeks worth of snow days.
I know it is not the same. I know quarantine doesn’t offer any hope of a snowplow before morning so you can get back to the office for the Very Important Meetings. Maybe the important meetings are still showing up on your computer, and you are having to parent, educate, entertain, and work all at the same time.
Even if work doesn’t follow you home, I know the fun of hot chocolate and old movies will wear thin by Day Three. Or Four. I know you will desperately miss the people who don’t live with you. You may be tempted to dig a snow tunnel across the yard just to touch humanity with your neighbors. Or run out into the street without your coat screaming like a wild person because you can’t take the four walls any more.
Don’t do it. Stay home. Sink back. Embrace quarantine like an extended snow day and try to find the benefits of extra rest. Extra quiet. Extra days with fewer decisions to make. The world will still be waiting once your streets are cleared.
And, you may have saved some lives.