It’s been seven months since this pandemic thing started and while I am fortunate enough to be back working and getting some semblance of normalcy, I know that many people are still isolated.
I can’t for the life of me understand how they must deal with this. I mean there is only so much for one person to do and reliving your day to day existence like that movie Groundhog Day, gets old, very fast. At least when I was cloistered for six weeks, I had my writing and my books, along with Netflix and Redbox DVDs to compensate for the dreary drudgery of day to day existence.
Seven Months? I’m absolutely certain I would be roommates with my stepson at Eastern State Hospital by now. I had many people ask me how I enjoyed not having to work while I was in isolation and I told them, it stressed me out to some degree. Mostly, it was the uncertainty that maybe I wasn’t needed anymore and that I would be replaced by someone younger and more capable than me.
At least that didn’t happen, and now it appears I will be looking at retiring come next March and possibly enjoy myself, being more focused on writing and perhaps getting more of my books published.
I don’t try and plan too far into the future because no one truly knows what the future holds. God knows, but He keeps all of that a guarded secret.
Earlier last month I was asked to write something on isolation through my Spokane Fiction Writers’ group. Naturally, it was fiction and has to do with what may be the final chapter of a novella I’m working on. In it the main character is going to find the antagonist on a reservation in Montana. He has the corona virus and his intent is justice for all the people who became this evil man’s victims through the years. He is isolated and determined. Perhaps that’s how I should view how others feel toward their own self-isolation.
Jerry Schellhammer 