Still Keeping it Real: Quarantine Day 1
(Disclaimer- I so dearly appreciate everyone who is using this time of uncertainty to write meaningful, uplifting messages of hope-filled reassurance and point us all back to grounding truth through literature. I would try to do that, but a) could never do it justice and b) could never come up with anything that hasn't already been said. So yes, cling to hope, this is allowed to suck, find ways to grow, God's in control. All real. All true. I'm thankful for writers like you.)
Four weeks later:
The days of lunch on the ramp have come to an end that no one could have anticipated. COVID-19 came like a flood and as emails rushed like raging rapids, we hurriedly started picking up our belongings in hopes of salvaging whatever we could from the turmoil upon us.
Now, we are home. Hearts are broken, but in the words of my girl Lauren Murphy, this is a heartbreak that we can microwave and not slow-cook in a crock pot. It’s something we’re allowed to be sad about - premature goodbyes, abrupt departures, no choice but to load up the car and leave - but we can’t sit and soak because that will cause us to sour, and if we sour, then we’re stuck. So we’ll sing. We’ll keep living and zoom out and beg for healing in this broken world - for revival, restoration, and ramp-level relationships far beyond our college years. More processing on that later, probably, when we’re emotionally stable and less under the influence of an entire day of social isolation.
***
It’s day one of the federally-mandated quarantine and morale, so far, is relatively high. I entertained myself by busting out Dad's old stud finder and blindly guessing where studs stood behind the sidewalk-color painted drywall. I guessed right twice before my brother held the stud finder to his chest and imitated a perpetual beeping noise, indicating that he was the stud and my search was over. I folded three shirts and then decided I had no desire to unpack the dorm-scented duffle bags that held some of the sweetest memories of my life: movie nights, sleepovers, small groups, and bathroom conversations muffled by the foam-filled brushing of teeth. Unpacking felt like moving on, and moving out and moving on within the same twenty four hours seemed unnecessarily daunting. I’d rather play with stud finders.
Resigning myself to a day of necessary laziness, I spent enough time on the couch for my hips to stiffen and then stood up and made six pounds of spaghetti with an entire package of ground beef. I was strangely intrigued by the way the heat turned raw meat into something purposeful and thought that maybe I have been raw meat for a little too long - cold, unemotional, calloused by circumstances I cannot change. But now I am enduring heat - the upheaval of my own agenda and the separation of the communal crutch that I have stood on for so long - and maybe this heat is enough to warm me up and make me usable, fulfilling, and complete. Maybe this is God’s way of bringing a little fire that will make me more like him. You can experience God on the Sea of Galilee and you can experience him over a sizzling pan of ground beef and I think that’s something we don’t consider enough.
My family ate the dinner I prepared and I watched them nearly break their teeth on overcooked Texas Toast but no one complained and we were thankful to be able to eat.
Another day of being in bed by ten. Tomorrow brings yet another blank slate: the relieving yet overwhelming feeling that I have absolutely no obligations. As a matter of fact, I am federally banned from having any social obligations of any kind. That’s constrictive and freeing at the same time, miserable and magical oh yeah. Maybe tomorrow I’ll set some goals or try to improve my life in ways beyond stud-finding and ground beef. But maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll shower and run and have enriching conversations and encourage people around me and contribute to our crumbling society in a meaningful way, or maybe I’ll kick back for a little bit longer and refresh, recharge, reset...reheat ground beef. Who’s to say? Let’s do this thing.