I recently saw a TikTok video (see below)  that cracked me up.  It started 8 weeks ago and showed a woman sterilizing all her groceries as she wore a mask, gloves, and goggles (a bit reminiscent of me).  The video moved to 2 weeks ago where she was lightly dusting the tops of each grocery item.  The 30 second clip ended in the present with the woman casually blowing “virus” off her grocery items without any PPE.

I was at the 8-week stage for many weeks and I have not yet succumbed to casually blowing virus off my groceries or mail.  But all this may change soon.

Our grandson who temporally lives with us (along with his mommy, daddy and baby sister) is returning to preschool this week.  Why continue to clean groceries when my grandson will be actively playing with peers and then coming back to the house? 

I had to let go of many of my rules, some of my fears and replace it with a lot of hope that we are doing the right thing.  Time will tell.  Nobody knows.  As my wise Dad said to me, “Several months ago we thought we would be in the house for a month or two until this blew over. This is not going away and there is no right or wrong answers, but we must start living again.  We can’t hide in our homes for years.”

So, we are venturing out.  My groceries are getting much less attention since we were told that surfaces do not pose the risk that we originally thought.  My hair will get colored because that grey thing I wrote about in March wasn’t working for me. My husband cut his ZZTOP Corona beard, after months of me complaining,  he woke up at PHASE 1 and said, “I told you I would cut it when we were off stay-at-home protocol.”  My daughter will go back to the office in two weeks and my grandson will start preschool.

I just read an article about worrying and how those who worry think that they are controlling what will happen if they continue to worry.  I have subscribed to this philosophy for most of my life.  Alas, it’s not true and worrying is even worse for your health than some of the things one worries about.

So, we are tiptoeing back into civilization. We are different, conceivably better, more grey, more hairy and hopefully smarter. As we all start to open our doors and venture out, please bring and wear your mask.  It does make a difference.

I would love to hear your comments  on some of the changes you have recently made.