I feel pretty okay with the fact that Millie made it to her eighth birthday before her first bit of childhood magic disappeared. I've been pretty much waiting for it to happen, like "Come on, kid, you can kill me at Clue, but you haven't figured out that a fairy couldn't make it past our advanced security system?"
I didn't expect for her to take it so hard. My sister ruined everything good for me way before I turned eight.
"So you're the one who leaves the money?" she sobbed into her Pizza Pocket home-ec project.
"Yes, Mills, and I do it because I love you so much! More than any fairy ever could!"
"Wait, so it was also you who left the $5 Target rebate card under my pillow?"
To my credit, I talked my way out of revealing the truth about all the other magical creatures, so for now, I still don't get any thanks for all the overpriced crap under the Christmas tree. Awesome.
This quarantine is taking a toll on all of us, I'm afraid. We're now a month in, and I asked my husband if he wanted to check into a local hotel just so he didn't go into shock from being home this often.
The elephant in the room (besides me in gray loungewear) has been my OCD. I hardly made it through the 2011 Listeria Cantaloupe outbreak with my sanity intact, and the 2017-2018 flu season just about wrecked me. I've been vaccinated for rabies, for goodness' sake, so it's no surprise that we've all been waiting for this pandemic to take over what's left of my logic and reason.
Our friend, Nick, in Switzerland, summed it up the best. He texted Matt, kindly asking about my mental well-being. Matt told him that I was doing surprisingly well, and Nick responded with, "Well, she's been preparing her whole life for this."
Unlike my affinity to Starburst Jellybeans, my OCD has been fairly well contained during this pandemic. I keep waiting for it to hit; for a trigger to send me spiraling into the madness of my mental illness, but perhaps I'm already there. I'm taking some extra precautions, but I've come to realize that most of the measures put in place have simply been my life for the past two decades. This IS my normal. I've been washing my hands 47 times a day since 1995. I've studied cross-contamination more than most restaurant owners.
I read an interesting article the other day highlighting how this pandemic gives others a glimpse into the mind of an OCD sufferer. This anxiety is simply my life. You all think wearing latex gloves at the ATM is a new thing? HA!
I'm very aware of how serious of a situation our world is in. I watch the Coronavirus Task Force briefings every night, and I, like most mothers I know, stay up late worrying about my family and the economy and the health of those around me. If OCD has taught me anything, however, it's that very little of this is in our control. Now don't get me wrong---I'm not trivializing all the things we should be doing to keep this virus at bay, but I also don't need Sally from finance to explain viruses to me via a Facebook post.
And for the love of all things social media, stop telling people they have to bleach their bag of carrots before bringing them inside! You go ahead and leave your ice cream on the porch for three days before touching it, but don't grocery-shame the rest of us!
Sorry for the rant, but between Pinterest Patty telling me how to color coordinate my non-existent homeschool chart while baking seventeen-ingredient glitter Easter bunny cupcakes all while telling me not to go to the store, how am I supposed to find the time to binge-watch Ozarks Season 3, Patricia? Get outta here with that crap!
I was at the liquor store the other day, masked up and needing some Champagne after an intense twenty-minute homeschooling math session (sorry, Millie, I don't know how many apples Johnny has left in his basket. I majored in English at a mediocre state school).
I tried to read the labels on the Champagne bottles but my eyeglasses kept fogging up from my homemade surgical mask, and since I'm not supposed to touch my face to fix my mask, I simply opened the door to the refrigerated wine and just grabbed blindly.
Of course I chose wrongly, and I ended up drinking some cheap wedding bubbly next to a fire with my husband. And it was perfect.
For once in my anxiety-ridden life, I'm giving it God. I'll wear the face mask to the grocery store, I'll wash my hands before eating, and I'll do my best to protect my family, but I'm so dog-tired of worrying.
