April 2020, Finding Silver Linings and Ways to Keep our Sanity

I rewrote my last blog post about a thousand times because of Covid-19 changing our lives by the minute. I really regret that now because I deleted a lot of what had been going on with us before everything went to hell. These little updates I put out once a month have become a bit of a journal for me that I’ve really liked to have. So I’m going to start writing in more past tense about the whole month – so this was our month of April 2020 at Grandma’s House.

Lodi and I had planned on him moving in by the end of April 2020 with or without him having a day job out here. I was SO totally and completely done with the long distance relationship bullshit, it was rapidly becoming unsustainable no matter how much we loved each other.

Compound that by a thousand with Covid-19 making every day for “essentials” like me a sprinting-scrambling-acid-trip and the constant horror of knowing my Mom had three strikes against her: Congestive heart failure, over 65 and going through chemotherapy for cancer… I wasn’t in a good place emotionally.

In late March Lodi was laid off due to the corona virus and we were under shelter in place orders here in MN. He drove home for good on March 27th and that was that.

Thank goodness because I had reached the end of my rope.

I needed him.

The irony of our lives in April 2020 was equally horrifying and hilarious.

On one hand there’s Lodi: extrovert, people person, loves to go out, talks on the phone with friends and family daily, probably has never gone a single day without going SOMEWHERE in his entire adult civilian life and was aided by that by living in a big city with TONS of places to go and things to do.

And then there’s me: introvert, has nightmares about being trapped with someone who is talkative, absolutely despises talking on the phone and has spent weeks at a time without leaving my house besides going to my day job. (Last year I literally took a week off from work and NEVER LEFT THE HOUSE to remodel my entryway as a birthday present vacation to myself!)

Guess who was an essential employee and which one of us got trapped at home?

Me getting home from work
Lodi: I’ve decided I won’t drink unless you’re home.
Me: Why?
Lodi: I’d end up with a drinking problem… Want a drink?
Me: Yes.

April 2020 was just a Nightmare for everyone.

Maybe we can all just sum up this month as NOT GOOD and never talk about it again?

Lodi and I may be opposites when it comes to extroverts/introverts but our personalities are basically the same, we’re both pretty high anxiety over thinkers who have trouble sitting still. And we both have our own special brand of OCD.

His OCD is more of a clean freak while mine is more of a neat freak. (As long as everything has a place and is IN ITS PLACE than I’m cool.)

Fourth day trapped at home he sent me a picture of the front window:
Lodi: Look how clean I got it!
Me: Holy shit babe that’s awesome!
some time later
Lodi: I underestimated the amount of windows.
Lodi: Why did I start this?
Lodi: I’m an idiot.

I came home to every window (and all the glass doors) in the house absolutely gleaming inside and out. Eventually he’s going to run out of things to clean so I expect there may be lots of upcoming DIY blog posts brought to us by Lodi. I already pointed him at the unfinished basement…

I am outraged/infuriated/offended/jealous-beyond-all-reason that I’m not doing it as working on this house is my life… But he’s home and the basement needs doing.

We’re all in this together one way or the other.

Every other essential employee I saw throughout the first couple weeks of this month looked worse by the day. I was dragging myself home from work feeling like something that crawled straight out of the movie the Shining. My response to Lodi being happy to see me was generally to growl and retreat to a corner of the house.

I noticed the Facebook Covid-19 memes changed from joking about a baby boom to (not quite) joking about a divorce boom as reality set in for all of us. (What a hell of a time for two people to learn to live together!)

Easter came and went, Lodi and I spent it on the couch eating pizza and watching Sherlock. The only reason we realized that it was a holiday was the few places that had been open for curb side were closed and we were bummed we couldn’t go pick up dinner.

Day seven trapped in the house Lodi shaved his entire face off. I came home to what had to be my boyfriend’s fifteen years younger little brother.

Me: What happened?
Lodi: I don’t even know.

A wonderful silver lining this month is that my mom just completed her LAST chemo treatment! Now she gets a three week, much deserved, break to heal.

I couldn’t go in with her for her last two appointments which was a relief. Of course I wanted to be by her side but they shouldn’t be letting anyone in there unless absolutely necessary!

I kept reminding myself that my actual day to day life wasn’t all THAT different from normal but that didn’t at all change the fact that April 2020 just cut my legs right out from under me.

It seems like there were two types of people in this: There were the people that used this time for good: Took advantage of being at home etc. Spring cleaned, learned new skills, tackled big house projects…

And then there were the people like me.

My motivation was just GONE.

All I wanted to do was get myself home and do nothing until this was all over. (Thousands of people were dying – painting my bathroom seemed a bit insignificant.)

We did eventually come to grips with this new “reality” though and got our heads wrapped around how to continue with not just life but our new lives with each other.

I’ve heard a lot of people saying they can’t wait for everything to be the same again but that’s not going to happen for many of us.

My essential day job (and hundreds of thousands of others) was forced to take enormous strides into the digital era that they had been putting off for years. Being the IT person and resident millennial at my company I’m thrilled even though I’m still recovering from having to implement years of changes in a matter of weeks *HEAD HITS DESK* But there’s no going back now!

Every single day of April 2020
Lodi: Want a drink?
Me: Yes.

My favorite Facebook meme: “When all of this is over could us essential employees go home for a month and you guys run things for awhile?” I even saw someone joking about looking forward to going to the dentist again…

Lodi sent me a selfie, “Pretty soon I’m going to be able to join a hair band!”

APRIL 2020 – ONE WEIRD MONTH

We had lovely weather for the majority of April and that was a damn fine thing.

Every year in Minnesota, no matter what, once the weather turns, it simply lifts us all up. I’ll be planting my garden nearly a month earlier than usual this year – let’s hope MN doesn’t make me regret it Ha!

Focus has turned to planning outside projects and I’m finally feeling excitement again after all this started. Excited for the yard, brain storming together, new projects – thrilled to have someone sharing all of this with me!