Quarantine quirks.

So many things are different now. It’s something that is so obvious it barely needs to be said. For most of us, we barely leave the house now, need gloves and masks and steel nerves even to brave a grocery store trip. We worry constantly about loved ones who are essential workers, who still have to go out to brave our dangerous world every day, keeping us all safe in one way or another. The big things in our lives, are so so different, but what I’ve found myself marveling at lately, is the small ways I’ve changed since this quarantine period started. 

For instance, tonight, I opened my freezer and there were three different kinds of ice cream in there. Three! I used to never keep ice cream at home. I know that my sweet tooth simply does not need that kind of temptation. Plus, I’m a big fan of cones so if I wanted ice cream, I used to go out. It was a special treat, not a normal thing. Until a pandemic hit, apparently. Now I am a person who keeps ice cream in her freezer and sneaks a few spoonfuls nearly every night. 

I’ve also become willfully sporadic about certain household chores. Dishes? Whatever, leave them until the morning, it’s fine. Tidying up my piles of books? Wiping down the sinks in the bathroom? Cleaning the kitchen counters? Why? It’s not like anyone is coming over. 

The pettiest of these little tiny changes? Replacing the toilet paper roll. It just seems like too much work now. This one is particularly fascinating to me, because my entire adult life, I have held the firm belief that whoever uses up the last of a roll must replace it with a fresh one immediately. Right? I thought this was just standard behavior, something everyone did as a reflex. 

think perhaps I consciously stopped when we were running so low on toilet paper that it was legitimately making me nervous, as a strange coping mechanism, one less way to have to think about toilet paper, or maybe a strange way of making sure not a single square went wasted. I’m not sure. But, we have enough toilet paper now, and I’m still doing it, for reasons that are a mystery to me. I don’t know why, it just feels like too much work now, and the world is falling apart and I’m too tired to be bothered. It’s so strange, to be going about my life and watch my new habits and not even recognize myself.

Has this happened to you, in one strange way or another? Let’s claim them as quarantine quirks, shall we? And then we can decide, depending on the level of annoyance they cause, if these quirks need to be addressed or can be let go for now. Personally, it’s my school’s spring break now, so I might try to start getting it together and addressing some of the household chore quirks now, see what I can do. But the ice cream? That habit is definitely staying for now.

There will be an after.

I’ve been running a lot lately, walking a lot too, because it’s really one of the only things we’re allowed to do in San Francisco right now. I feel such intense gratitude anytime I’m allowed to leave our apartment building, to feel the sun on my face, to remind myself that I have a body that needs to move. 

I feel this weight, a pressure on my chest, that any day that freedom could go away too, and so I must run now before I no longer can. Maybe it’s strange, or pessimistic, or maybe it’s just realistic (apparently Paris has begun limiting residents’ outdoor activities?). On the bright side, I’ve been incredibly consistent with exercise. 

Anyway. Often, on my neighborhood outings, the streets are empty aside from me and a few construction workers. They’ve been doing construction on the edge of our neighborhood, kind of a lot of construction, for a while now. I knew this, had seen the projects, but hadn’t really given much thought to it. 

A few days ago, on a whim, perhaps because my extroverted self is so starved for human interaction, I paused on my run when a friendly construction worker waved at me. From more than ten feet away, I yelled, “What’re you building?” 

He said something about apartments, maybe something about offices. I honestly couldn’t hear him well over all the din, and for all the obvious reasons, I wasn’t about to move closer. But, as I waved at him and continued on my run, I pictured how that part of the street would look, with a building instead of a giant dirt lot. 

It’s silly, and I can’t quite explain it, but that idea gave me so much hope. Someday, maybe, after all of this, there will be an after. And that after might have things like apartment buildings, or friendly conversations with strangers, or other things that my little brain can’t even imagine now. 

There will be an after. We hope.