Day 1

I’m getting a late start to my work day; it’s been a rough week — very busy — and I can’t wait for the weekend. It’s our 12th wedding anniversary tomorrow (yes, we’re that couple who gets married a week before Christmas, when our loved ones couldn’t possibly have anything else to do) and we’re thinking of what we’d like to do to celebrate.

My phone rings. It’s Joe.

“I’m coming home early,” he says.

“Oh, nice! We can get a jump on the festivities.”

“I’m coming home early because I’m sick.”

Oh, shit.

My mind immediately starts racing. Joe’s coworker had been sick earlier in the week; he insisted to Joe that he’d tested negative for covid, but he came back to work anyway, still sick. Joe says his symptoms are exactly like that coworker’s.

He tells me he’s going to stop at one of the mobile rapid-test sites on the way home.

Three hours later, after waiting in the bumper-to-bumper line, the test site starts turning cars away. They’ve run out of tests for the day.

He tries out two other testing sites; they’re both overrun with people, and he’s starting to feel really crappy. They’re both turning new arrivals away. Meanwhile, I’ve been texting my stepsister, who had covid run through her family a couple months ago. She looked up online that our local CVS had at-home test kits available. I throw on my coat and race to the store. I grab two of the three remaining test kits, along with the Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Zinc, and echinacea my stepsister’s recommended. I text Joe to come on home.

We take the tests. He’s positive (strongly so, according to the stark pink line on his test strip). I’m negative.

I grab a few things from the master bedroom and the master bath. I shut the bedroom door behind me, Joe still on the other side.

I’ll be sleeping in the second bedroom/office/storage space for the next 10 days. One silver lining to going from a pillow-top Sleep Number bed to an IKEA mattress? Dodo keeps to her usual sleeping spot, right next to my head.

At least Dodo is in the same place. That is a comfort.

Day 2

Despite his flu-like symptoms, Joe makes us appointments at the local urgent care clinic for PCR covid tests. We arrive right when the clinic opens. Within minutes, the waiting room is full. Every single person is here for a covid test.

The nurse takes us to the same room. She takes our vitals, asks us covid screening questions, and proceeds with the nasal swabs.

The nurse leaves, and I take that opportunity to wish us a Happy Anniversary. I find that it’s best to have a sense of humor (as dark as the moment calls for it to be) in times like these.

A few minutes later, a nurse practitioner comes in, listens to Joe’s lungs and heart (all three sound good), and advises us to purchase a pulse oximeter — apparently, one of the sneaky things about covid is that you can be walking around, feeling fine, but have dangerously low blood oxygen levels.

We drive straight to the CVS. I go in to purchase the device, along with some Microban and Clorox wipes, to ensure that we have a healthy supply (so to speak).

We go home. Joe goes to his room. I start sanitizing — everything.

The rest of the day is a mishmash of cleaning, organizing, and feeling utterly alone, even though my husband is only 20 feet away from me.

Before I go to bed, I call Joe to wish him a good night. We talk on the phone for a while. It reminds me of when we were first dating, and we’d talk on the phone for hours while he did crosswords, every now and then asking for my help with a clue. It’s an unexpected silver lining.

Happy Anniversary.

Day 3

After two days of fever, chills, aches, headaches, and unbearable sinus pressure, Joe’s symptoms are starting to ease. I bring him tea and soup, though he doesn’t put much of a dent in the latter. He just doesn’t have the appetite. I diligently check his temperature and pulse ox throughout the day, fielding multiple phone calls from his parents. We dreaded telling them in the first place, because they’re the type who like to make these things about how stressful it is for them, and then expect you to make them feel better. Sigh.

My stepsister and her family arrive at my father’s house. Hours later, my dad drops off leftovers from the traditional Christmas dinner he made. I cry for two hours. It’s finally hit me. My Christmases — all three of them — are cancelled.

An Amazon package arrives. It’s from Ellen, my friend and coworker. She’s sent me gourmet chocolate bars and a forehead thermometer (I’d told her that I wasn’t monitoring my own temperature, since Joe had the only thermometer in the house, and it’s an oral one.) Ellen gets it — her Thanksgiving was cancelled last year when covid came to her doorstep. It’s nice to have friends.

Chocolate and a forehead thermometer: a true gift.

I try watching Muppet Christmas Carol — a favorite from my childhood — but I can’t do it. It makes me too sad. The Christmas music, movies, and ambience that are I routinely use throughout the year whenever my mood needs lifting now have the opposite effect — they just make me sad.

I watch Twilight instead. And then Eclipse (because New Moon is entirely too dreadful). And then Breaking Dawn Part 2 (aka the bad-ass conclusion, where everything works out perfectly for literally forever).

That provides the escape I need.

Day 4

Today is a blur. It’s too hard to do this and work at the same time. It’s been non-stop laundry cycles and dishwasher cycles and hand washing and temperature-taking and soup-making and mask wearing and spare-room living. Oh, and present wrapping. It’s Christmastime, after all.

My stepmom, stepsister, and her family stop by for a drive-by visit. I call down to them from the balcony, like a germy Juliet.

I manage to put in a full day of work, then tell my manager that I’m starting my holiday break a day early. Let this serve as anecdotal evidence that people caring for people with covid need time off, too.

I set my out of office message and shut down my laptop. It’s time to sanitize everything again.

I’m irrationally (or completely rationally, depending on who you talk to) angry. At everything. At the person who came into work when he knew he was sick. Though I have no evidence, my anger convinces me that he’d lied about testing negative. I’m angry at the people who believe the vaccines aren’t safe, or are part of a massive government conspiracy, because of something they read on Facebook. I’m angry at the people who, even if they believe the vaccines are safe, won’t get vaccinated because it’s their “right” to take their chances — despite the risk it poses to others. I’m angry at the people who say covid is just like the flu. At the people who can’t be inconvenienced to wear a mask. At the people who only care about their own comfort and wellbeing, and don’t take into account that their actions have a direct impact on others. At the people who think like that all the time, about everything, not just about covid.

I take out my anger on one of my unvaccinated friends, via text. Because now we live in a world where we categorize ourselves and others as vaccinated or unvaccinated. Text-bombs are one of the worst places to take out one’s anger. All nuance and grace is lost in the tiny characters. My present to her sits under the tree, wrapped in guilt and tinsel.

I’m so, so angry. At all of them. At all the things.

Days 5, 6, 7, and 8 (aka, the Gamut of Grief)

And I thought Day 4 was a blur.

Speaking of which, what day is it? I make a mental note to immediately set a volunteer/hobby/goal schedule for myself when I retire. My mind does not do well without some semblance of a routine.

It’s odd to feel so lonely, even though I am far from alone. My dad makes multiple drive-by trips, heaping leftovers and gluten-free goodies on me like my life depends on it — and truthfully, it kind of does. My father says “I love you” with food; my cup runneth over.

Despite a constant supply of cat snuggles, I’m so hard-up for physical contact that one evening, I cut holes in a big trash bag, tuck my hair up under a washable winter hat, don a mask and gloves, and enter Ground Zero for a hug. I know that it’s likely either overkill or completely useless as PPE — but it provides me with something to do, and us with a bit of levity.

The smile that spreads across Joe’s face is worth the effort. The hug is worth the precaution.

Amidst the stress — and Joe’s increasing level of crankiness (the better he feels, the more he’s aware that he’s stuck in that room until Day 10) — I find moments of gratitude. Here are some that come to mind:

{Our bedroom door is paneled glass, so at least we can see each other. We wave to each other, we talk through the door. We even play tic-tac-toe. On Christmas Eve, we clink a toast (with wine I had delivered to the condo) through the door.}

An isolation activity: tic-tac-toe through the door.

Nope — not a mirror image. Just a toast during COVID isolation.

{The cats really, really, really love their Papa. They don’t quite understand why they can’t go in there, or why he can’t come out. Sometimes they sit at the door, staring in at him, and meow. It breaks and fills my heart at the same time.}

“But why can’t I come in, Papa?” Dodo doesn’t understand.

{Speaking of the cats — there’s enough space under the door that Joe can play with them with their favorite toys: pipe cleaners.}

{Cooking grounds me. I forget that sometimes. Joe does most of the weekday cooking nowadays. But now, it’s all me. I never thought I’d find such comfort in dicing onions, peeling carrots — nourishing my loved one. I make a casserole using my dad’s leftovers of chicken, broccoli, and rice.}

A leftovers-laden casserole, ingredients courtesy of a Daddy drive-by.

{Calls, texts, etc. There’s something very special about reverting to old dating rituals 17 years into a relationship. It’s a hit of nostalgia and also highlights how far you’ve come; how much your initial investment has grown. Sometimes I forget just how much I love the simple sound of his voice. This is a nice reminder.}

{We did the best we could. We masked up, we got vaccinated. I think of how much worse Joe’s illness might have been, or how much earlier one or both of us may have gotten sick, had we not taken these precautions. I think of all the potential paths we may have tread, branching off from the path we took. Some of them would not have ended well. So I’m grateful for what is, right now.}

I’m still angry a lot of the time, even when I find moments to be grateful. I’m also drinking too much, and taking Xanax on top of it. I’m numbing myself through this and there’s a part of me that judges myself for not being stronger.

This is not a fun time. Prime example: Day 9.

Day 9 (aka, Christmas Day)

Well this just plain sucks.

Screw gratitude. Screw silver linings. Damn all of the events and people and moments and circumstances and decisions that led to Joe being sick and tired, me being just tired — and both of us being alone — on Christmas.

I am terribly, bone-deep sad today. I have a new appreciation for people who endure holidays on their own. I wouldn’t wish this feeling on anyone.

Okay, fine. One silver lining to today. A two-hour Zoom call with my Aunt Deb, all the way on the other side of the country. This is her third Christmas alone. Several years ago, both of her parents and her wife all died within months of each other.

I ask her how she’s gotten through all of this — how, just when she was starting to get a handle on her grief, she was thrown into a pandemic. She laughs a little and says, “I don’t know, a lot of good meds?” We keep talking.

The previous night, I’d spent an hour-and-a-half talking to my Uncle Denny. To put it lightly, we have very differing opinions on everything from politics to pandemics to politicized pandemics. And yet we managed to have an engaging, thoughtful conversation on those very topics. I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a bleeding-heart liberal idiot, but at least he kept that opinion mostly to himself.

It’s nice to reconnect with family; I don’t know why it took forced isolation for me to think of reaching out. But in the last two weeks, I’ve spoken to two cousins, an aunt, and an uncle. It feels kind of nice.

Day 10 (aka, So … we’re just … okay now?)

Well, we followed all of the CDC’s recommendations. We isolated Joe for 10 days. He hasn’t had a fever in almost a week. Aside from fatigue, he hasn’t had any other symptoms for a few days. He just took a home test — it’s negative. I take a home test — it’s negative.

So … we’re done now?

We just … go back to normal?

Why doesn’t anyone talk about how utterly strange it feels to be recreating Outbreak one day, and then the next, sitting on a couch sharing popcorn with the guy who brought the monkey into town?

It’s too sudden of a shift. My psyche can’t handle it. So for the first several hours, we wear masks when we’re in the same room together. We go into the master bedroom/hot zone together, spray Citrace on absolutely every surface, open the window (despite the freezing temps outside), and turn on the air purifier full blast.

We spend hours just talking. Somehow, even though we were in the same 1,000-square-foot space for 10 days together, we needed time to catch up.

By the end of the day, we make a decision. We remove our masks. We sit down to watch a movie. We share a bed (with freshly bleached sheets). At first, I insist that we face away from each other while we sleep. I cross the midline of the king-sized bed with my socked foot, placing it on Joe’s calf.

At some point in the middle of the night, I turn over to lie on my other side. I reach over with my hand, place it on the back of his head, and start stroking his hair. It’s one of my favorite ways to lull myself to sleep. It’s pure comfort, and I’ve missed it immensely.

This is it. We’ve done the best we could. The rest is not up to us. This is where we are.