The answer is no.
I've been out of work officially since March 18th when the order was given. But on Friday the 13th I kept Zack, who is 13 now but formerly asthmatic, home from school. A client at work had the audacity to Hug and Kiss my mom in front of me while we were already at great risk. And I shouted across the salon, "Hey!!! No! I need her healthy! Do me a favor, don't kiss Anyone for at least two weeks from now? Promise me!" I worked a short day. Turns out that 2 weeks would easily become 2 months and I am looking now towards the possibility of 2 years. On Saturday the 14th I felt very uncomfortable being at work.
What have I done while being home so far?
I paid my bills on time.
I cook meals every day and get to eat them at my house.
I walk outside every day the weather is nice enough.
I play board games.
I watch a sunset every day there is one.
I hug my son at least once a day even though he's too old to care about such things.
I TRY to get my 13 year old to do all his school work in a timely manner.
About every other or every 3rd day I lose my shit and start screaming and crying about everything imaginable.
Once a week I read the hundreds of local Obituaries scanning for fringe people I know.
This week I found a friend from High School's mom. I haven't seen this friend since High School. But we are occasionally linked on Facebook or Instagram. I'm not sure why we aren't now. I always liked her. I may have done something to piss her off. I do that a lot. Her mom lost her husband and was coming in the past couple years to have my mom do her hair sometimes. Her other daughter came in with her sometimes for me to do her hair. She was pregnant at the time, she has a young baby now. My mom said, "at least she got to know the joy of being a Grandma." My mom's opinion was always that I was the best thing that ever happened to her, until I had Zack, then he clearly took center stage. But I wonder how I would have survived young motherhood, or motherhood at all, without my mom. Now those acquaintances of mine have lost both their parents in their early 30s. It is far too soon. Their mom was too young. We are far too young.
My primary distraction from all the death and suffering going around is politics. As usual people online would rather argue with their fellow citizen over which Oligarch is going to fuck us less hard than realize they are not doing the jobs, we pay them to do with our tax money, with our interests at heart.
When will people realize that voting for President doesn't change the world?
When will they realize that how they live their lives from day to day is how we change the world?
One happy thought I've had since all this began is that the Heirloom Seed company I've been promoting for over a decade ran out of prepackaged seeds for the season. More people are planning and growing gardens than ever before because half of us are home with nothing better to do. I ordered my seeds and baby plants this week.
I was one of the first on the unemployment website in NJ before it started to crash. Before the number of people on it skyrocketed. So I've been able to pay my bills so far. Luckily I had savings I was supposed to be using to pay my dad back for my car, and that covered the delays that have happened in the system. I also received the extra $600 this week from the state of NJ for people on unemployment. That is a great way to stave off this crisis because we will only use it to pay our bills and fund whatever is left of the economy. Too many people are being left out because the system is too bogged down to help everyone that needs it.
My mom has had to attempt to get loans to save our businesses. Our small bank was woefully uninformed as to the process. The process changed every day. Within an HOUR one day her accountant who had been working diligently for her and many other of his clients was cut out of the transaction altogether by the government. While allowing banks to profit 5 percent off of the Billions of dollars they are loaning to small businesses $15,000 dollars at a time. If you are going to gain anything from this crisis you must grab while the grabbing is good. Soon corporations will have funneled all the aid to the top as much as is humanly, or corporately in this case, possible.
I'm glad that my family has learned from our experiences with other financial collapses and with Hurricane Sandy and the trauma that caused. Leading us to bounce back a little stronger this time than we have in the past. We are learning how to handle end stage capitalism. Which is a do what you can while you can sort of plan.
I have friends who are nurses on the front line.
My mom has lifelong friends who are on the front line.
My best friend's mom is on the front line.
I wonder what will be left of their energy when this is all over.
How much PTSD can one overworked and underfunded healthcare system really take?
I wanted to end this on hope. Instead I just left it to sit for a couple days while I thought about things more because I didn't know how to accomplish the task of this unattainable goal I set for myself.
I've been more in touch with like-minded people who believe in the fight for peace and a global disarmament. I've been more in touch with old friends who I know well and who always knew me well. I spent more time with family before the crisis started than most people do. I work with my mom. I spend every day after school and most weekends with my son. My boyfriend works from home and is literally always there for me. My step-dad and uncle run the business under my house. But I feel like I've had more time to actually enjoy their company. I am less stressed out than usual, that is how stressed out I've been, since becoming a young mom at 21, up until now.
I haven't had healthcare most of Zack's life, and when I had it while pregnant with him the health insurance company denied me pregnancy coverage.
I finally have medicare as I am officially a 1 parent household on paper, and my son has healthcare through his dad's job. I know it's the worst coverage ever, but it's a start.
We need to end For-Profit Medicine.
We need to end For-Profit Healthcare.
We need healthcare to be seen as the human right that is undoubtedly is. I am not glad it took this for everyone to see it. But now everyone can see it quite clearly.
I fear that the coming Presidential election in the United States will distract people from the fact that we need to fight for our rights against an unjust system. A system that Drumph did not create, he is only a puppet and large bulbous symptom of. Neither of the two major party platforms include medicare for all, or universal healthcare as I prefer to call it. Medicare has a bad governmental connotation.
However... I am spending much less time in fear than I have in past times of my life. And I want to find ways for us all to encourage the fight in one another. If we do get sick with the virus we will go through the majority of that pain isolated from the people we love most. Hold onto the image, of their love, in your mind and know, that if you suffer and survive, it will be that love that sees you through to the other side.
If nothing else this pandemic can teach us all to see how connected we are as humans even we when don't want that to be true. No one right now wants to think they are connected to Trump Supporters. To Nazi's. To 5G! To the Big Bad that we want to exist, so we can blame it!!! WHO CAUSED THIS?!?!?!?!!?!??!
But my proposition to you is to consider that, we all did.
We all as a collective looked the other way and did not fight for what was right: having pandemic protections; having universal healthcare; eradication of food desserts; eradication of poverty; eradication of homelessness.
We have supply chains for necessities that are dependent on profits over the lives of actual living breathing (now gone) human beings. We all collectively support global capitalism. Even those of us, like me, who Want to be against it. I am a cog in a very small wheel of this mechanized system, as I'm sure many of you are too.
We can not educate ourselves out of this system.
It is time for action.
This is my call to action.
What are you doing to create the world you want to see?
I will write more about the positive things I see my friends and family doing to create the world they want to see as time goes on.
We all need to settle into this new way of life and realize that we can not easily go back to the way things once were. If we get a vaccine in a timely manner it still may be 2 years before everything is open again and functioning as we were used to. And things will change. Sanitation will become a greater priority at all times. Hand shaking that men have imposed on us as a social norm to assert their dominance will be a thing of the past.
Just keep thinking of ideas that you do not believe are possible. Now is the time for ideas and ideals. They will be possible. Now is the time for speed trains.
Until Next Time...
Love,
Jackie Fucking Lane
