“I just want to see people,” says my 12-year old daughter during another family dinner. It’s been lovely to have so many dinners together, whereas often we would have been en route to or from different activities during dinnertime. Before coronavirus, my husband wouldn’t be home for dinner during the week. Now he’s not only always home, but he’s usually grilling dinner. Still, he’s frequently working after dinner and on the weekends. He can work from home, but he gets distracted by our presence. For our part, we are tired of having to be quiet most of the time. Our house feels too small to be a school, office, and music studio simultaneously (we still have online piano lessons and the oldest girls need to practice their band instruments for school). We have started wondering why we pay so much to live so close to an office that my husband can’t use. 

When the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders started, my husband’s office closed and his work-load evaporated. He managed to set up a home office in the basement, and he shifted his focus toward whatever clients needed in the uncharted, COVID-impacted business environment. Some of his previous work revived recently, but the shut-down has introduced significant uncertainty and anxiety. We have enjoyed occasional family movie and game nights, but many nights he is focused on emails or conference calls instead.  

I’m a so-called “stay-at-home mom” to three girls in third, sixth, and ninth grades. Thankfully, I have not had the stress of juggling work and parenting, along with overseeing “distance-learning.” With schools closed for the academic year at least, I feel quite vindicated in having decided not to work after a two-year part-time consulting job. It’s been 61 days since the schools closed in Virginia, but we started staying home from most gatherings in early March. My husband warned me of the seriousness of the new coronavirus throughout February, all while fighting off a strange respiratory illness that lingered into March.* Still, Governor Northam’s announcement on March 23 of school-closures and a stay-at-home order through June 10 shocked me. My mood on the afternoon of March 23 was not good.

This spring, we’re missing soccer teams, swim team practices and meets, a high-school band trip to Chicago, a spring break trip to visit my dad, and especially, seeing friends in person. We tried a Zoom play date for my youngest, but it was terrible. One daughter has been too shy to arrange FaceTime meetings with friends, but has started talking on the phone with a few friends recently. The lack of social interaction for my shy children has been very difficult, since they really require the kind of spontaneous connections that arise from school and sports. My youngest was especially sad and worried as her birthday approached in April. The woods have been our frequent refuge during this shut-down, so we headed into nature to commune with a few friends who were willing to meet us in-person, outside. It was as good as it gets during a pandemic, I suppose.

I’m so grateful to have three children who generally enjoy each other’s company, but they still miss their friends. Playing online games together is not a sufficient substitute for in-person friendships. However, this week I have noticed that some kids are out riding bikes together, with one other friend or in groups of siblings from two families. Earlier tonight, I saw lots of young people out jogging and walking in the warm sunshine, meeting for drinks in the park, and waiting in line for to-go drinks from the several bars and restaurants lining the Arlington Metro corridor.** I’d describe it as crowded, but I’d still say that many or most people were wearing masks and were standing at a reasonable distance from people outside their close friend or family group.

I don’t know how much longer people really will stay at home and away from each other, especially because being outside near other people in the sunshine seems healthier than isolation indoors. Even my father and my in-laws, who are in their 70s, don’t want to continue this extreme isolation. I have been concerned about my father, a widower of nearly two years, living alone and robbed of his normal social opportunities. He’s keeping busy and active with home-improvement projects, reading, and binge-watching murder-mysteries. He’s growing a goatee for the first time in his life, and he really needs a haircut! It upsets me that I cannot visit him in Delaware without quarantining somewhere for 14 days, even though I haven’t been anywhere indoors except the grocery store for months. I’d like to drive over for the day just to have a picnic with him, but I’m afraid of getting fined or arrested for coming with out-of-state plates.

Living in the country, my in-laws keep their distance from most people year-round anyway. They want to take reasonable precautions to stay healthy, but they also want to continue working and living life. They were planning to participate in an outdoor event in June, but it appears that the extension of Pennsylvania’s shut-down makes the event too risky. People cannot plan. My father-in-law bristles at being told what he cannot do. We can all relate. As one friend recently said, “it’s maddening.” Yes, it is.

* My husband got a COVID-19 antibody test and was negative. We don’t know anyone in Arlington who has or has recovered from the new coronavirus. 

** As of May 15, Virginia reports 977 deaths from COVID-19, including 1,534 cases and 71 deaths in Arlington county, where I live.