I hit a serious low point yesterday. The broadly applicable stress of this whole international pandemic situation knocked me the hell down. Sobbing, anxious, breakdown for an hour or two down. I’m not sure I’m really better yet, but by evening, I was functional enough to watch an episode of “Tiger King”, but…nonetheless, here I am, up before 5:30am and on my work computer sending out the morning emails because I couldn’t sleep past four, which is becoming the norm.

It’s really a mix of things that are adding up to this perfect storm of mental and emotional instability. The whole “state of things”, three weeks or so into the “social distancing” era, feels like it’s breaking down out there, which isn’t encouraging at all.

From inside the family compound, it doesn’t look too bad, really. I can push my documents around from the home office, the kids can deal with school online, and evenings are filled with virtual dance classes via videoconference; the spouse taught two of hers from the kitchen in front of the webcam last night. It’s amazing what a fat internet pipe will get you.

However, my role as “the one who goes out and does the shopping”, lets me see more of the outside world. Yesterday in the early afternoon, I took a quick jaunt down to the office to retrieve a few things that would make long-term telework more effective (and to grab the office plants that hadn’t been watered in a week), and combined that with a trip to the grocery store to grab a couple of things we needed, because I want to make as few trips out as possible.

Yesterday, the general aura of politeness and consideration that I described last week appeared to be crumbling. Out in public, some people are starting to ignore the sensible practices; greeting friends with hugs in public, disregarding distancing signage, unnecessarily fondling merchandise, being rude to store staff about empty paper product shelves, and, most oddly, wearing masks, but not covering their nose with it, or pulling the mask down whenever they’re talking to someone (!). Others are taking it to the other extreme, wearing what are effectively haz-mat suits and aggressively blocking aisles with their shopping cart while still hoarding all kinds of staples.

Seeing this kind of behavior, combined with the daily unhelpful bullshit being peddled by the White House, is really straining my faith in humanity, at least the humanity that lives here in the United States mid-Atlantic region. People aren’t behaving with the proper levels of seriousness or responsibility, which just means this is all going to be worse than it should be, and is going to last a hell of a lot longer.

That, in addition to the extra friction of five people stuck in teh house, isn’t exactly ideal for my mental health. Also not helping me is that I’ve been doing some mental math, and realized that I’m pretty much right at the same point in life my dad was when I lost him. I know that I’m *not* in the same state that he was at the time, but with all this extra metaphysical weight I’m carrying, I’m concerned that I’m only a couple of bad steps away from getting there, and I don’t like that feeling.

I’m trying to cope the best I can. I do my work, I try to find distractions, and keep telling myself that it’s not forever, even if the evidence I’m seeing out in the world isn’t completely supporting that thesis.

Here’s to hoping it works.