Two Questions Have Swapped Places With An Old Familiar One

Before the prescribed social-distancing and phased lockdowns hijacked my daily routine, a nagging question seemed to always rattle around in my head: Will I have enough time?

I have a tendency to over-schedule myself.  Before Covid (B.C.), I could pack a lot in during the course of a single day: a trip to the grocery store followed by a walk or yoga, or both; a writing session to pen a blog or chapter for my debut memoir; a trip to the suburbs for a tennis lesson, lunch with girlfriends, and a visit to my mother in assisted living. Those were full days, and I was forever glancing at my watch to determine if “I have a few minutes to….”  Fill in the blank with fold laundry, return emails, or call Comcast and find out when the internet would be back up.  

The ripple effect of the pandemic meant I had more time to finish fewer tasks. Thanks to grocery delivery, virtually no social obligations or required travel, the dilemma of “not enough time” evaporated like a bad odor. In the spot that the old worry used to occupy, two fresh questions popped their ugly heads in: If and When.

Last month, I made a trip out to Montana to move household furnishings into a very delayed (due to Covid) renovation of our family’s mountain home. I dreaded the trip. Every aspect of it. The airport check-in and security lines. The too-tight-for-social-distancing seat assignments. Wearing a mask for hours on end. Crowded baggage claim. The necessary trip to the grocery store on the other end.  And, the unpacking, sorting and storing of stuff I hadn’t seen for eighteen months. 

Worse, I feared the health of the construction workers still finishing up the punch list items, and the movers with whom I would have to interact in confined spaces for hours. The dread of contracting the coronavirus and exposing my husband and family infused my being. I worried about how my body would react if I contracted it. The subsequent distress caused poor appetite, diminished concentration, and profound sleeplessness. For three weeks, I routinely awoke around two a.m. with the two, new questions, If and When, bullying my brain: If I get Covid in the mountains, what will I do and where will I convalesce? When will I know if I’ve been careful enough and avoided contamination? When will this nightmare be over?

If and When.

They are two dramatically different queries than the singleton that centered around having enough time for insignificant tasks. Most troubling is that the new questions pose unanswerable and life-altering consequences. They have too easily usurped the familiar ground where “Will I have enough time?” had been quite cozy. 

I have come to dearly miss my old preoccupation with time. It was a singular, nagging question, relatively harmless, and just a tad bit annoying. That such a mild worry should be wiped out by fear and dire uncertainty confounds me. If and when we ever do rid ourselves of the pandemic and its new variants, I will welcome back “Will I have enough time?” with open arms.  I will laugh at its silliness and chatter with it like old friends do. Embracing it, I will tug it along with me, to the bank, to the grocery store, to yoga, and to visit my mother.  I’m certain that everyone–in all the places that I used to visit, unmasked, B.C.–will be glad to see “Will I have enough time?” at my side. 

For that will mean that life is back to the old normal. What a glorious day that will be.

There are all kinds of futures.
There is a hoped-for future, there is a feared future,
there is a predictable future, and there is an unimagined future.
– Werner Erhard

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