Mar
2020

The new normal…

Quarantine has definitely not been fun but I am thankful for friends I can FaceTime with like Olivia!

He said

It for sure has been a major adjustment to our lives this past week as more and more things become limited or shuttered to potentially prevent an exponential spread beyond the healthcare system capacity. What is difficult to hear about and see other people not take the idea of social distancing seriously. And not just in other countries or even cities—here at home in our city and even in our neighbourhood! I get that quarantine is hard to explain to kids and to get them to understand why it is so important to be so vigilant about. But what should be 2-4 weeks of serious change in behaviour – while inconvenient now – is a lot better than the reality of what will happen if this goes beyond the capacity of our healthcare system.

One thing we have been thoroughly impressed with is Emelia’s ability to adjust. Sure in the beginning there some arguments and it was a lot more challenging to get her to a place of understanding. But, all of a sudden a switch flipped and she has been so much more in tune with what we need to do. And we know how hard this must be as an only child while seeing her all of her besties have built-in-their-house playmates in siblings. But the godsend in all of this is her bestie Olivia. The two have spent entire days FaceTiming each other doing everything from makeup trials to playing online games, to crafting. We’re so happy to she know that she has a friend like that through this to make her not feel so alone in it all.

As I start to settle in to what this looks like for work, I spent a good portion of yesterday reaching out to my team and checking in with them. Overwhelmingly the sentiment was one of pride and being cared for working for a company that prioritizes our team so much. And I feel just the same. By the end of the day after having connected with 80% of my team, I felt better than great about the place I choose to give 5 days of my week to, every week. It made for a tiring day mentally but one of such great reward too as we see other companies shuttering or laying teams off. At the end of the day I was more than happy to unplug and just spend it with Danielle & Emelia watching a movie after dinner.

One thing that has come from this quarantine is that in light of the rower strap breaking and not having that activity regularly close the rings is daily walks with Danielle & Emelia. While we await the warranty fix for the rower, we started making walks a priority every day. Some days Emelia will be in roller blades, and some days it’s just Danielle & I while Emelia FaceTiming at home with Olivia. But, at any rate it is just so good to get out of the house, get some fresh air and still be able to close the rings every single day. Sure it will be great to get the rower fixed eventually, but I don’t mind this replacement for exercise one bit.

The one shining light in all of this was Friday morning at 7am promptly, Danielle was able to secure us a campsite at Bon Echo for the week in August we were planning to go. And the best part is our site neighbours to the back of us are The Jornitz family so we’ll be able to have a two-site compound. After getting shut out of camping there last summer I’d been lying if I said last summer felt complete—it was a huge void in my summer. Once Danielle said it was confirmed, and I even made sure she had the email confirmation to match, it felt like a big piece of our summer had come back! Now, I recognize that these next 3-4 weeks are absolutely crucial in this as Ontario Parks have announced all camping up to April 30 is canceled and refunds are being issued. But for now there is the glimmer of hope that makes me feel a lot better about our summer plans.

She said

I cannot get over how much the world can change in a week! Over the last few months the news has been dominated with news of a virus that was sweeping through Asia, then to Europe and finally now to North America and all reaches of the world. Canada has had the benefit of the crisis that has hit the rest of the world and has been able to make some sort of plan to lessen the impact on our health care system. For many it felt surreal like it wouldn’t happen here and in some cases things changed too slowly and in other cases things have changed far ahead of other areas of the world.

What has dominated the news is the idea of flattening the curve, it is not to say that we are not going to feel the crippling impact on the health care system that could never keep up with a spike in life threatening cases. As the last week moved along things started to get very real and life began changing at a lightening speed. News of cases started and people started to panic plan, stores were overwhelmed and basics were starting to run out as people prepared (and over-prepared). As other countries like Italy became overwhelmed with the virus and started full quarantine people here started panicking it would happen here.

Thursday the week prior things started really changing fast, first the government announced that schools would be closing for three weeks (two weeks post March Break) to keep children from gathering in tight quarters, in quick succession professional sports were cancelled until further notice, all public gatherings cancelled, amateur sports cancelled (including Emelia’s gymnastics and dance). In the last week restaurants, bars, salons, dentists, doctors offices, and the list goes on and on have all been told to close. Every day we were receiving calls for appointments we had lined up all being cancelled.

So life as we know it has changed, for how long we don’t know. What does the future bring, we don’t know. Every day there are multiple government briefings on new programs to help people who will be struggling as a result of this virus, everyday new restrictions are in place. We are certainly not taking any of this for granted. So needless to say the next few weeks will be stressful but as we have told Emelia the more we do now the faster we can get back to the old normal, maybe a bit more grateful for the things we have always taken for granted.

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