Five journaling prompts for Covid-19 Coronavirus times
It is definitely an unusual time for all of us right now in our personal histories and I want to be sure I’m documenting the details. I decided to come up with a short list of journaling prompts to help me keep track of how Covid-19 is impacting my life. I’m going to answer these questions today and then again in the future.
Here are the questions again if you want to copy and paste them to your own document.
Have you or anyone in your immediate family had Covid-19? What was the outcome?
Do you know anyone who has had Covid-19? What was the outcome?
How has your life changed because of Covid-19? How about those in your immediate family - how have their lives changed?
What are the numbers like in your area (town, city, state, province, country, etc.)?
What do you want to remember most about this time?
Here are my responses as of today (June 15, 2020):
Have you or anyone in your immediate family had Covid-19? What was the outcome?
We have been very lucky that none of us have had Covid-19.
Do you know anyone who has had Covid-19? What was the outcome?
Our rate of cases has been slower to peak in Utah but we are now heading in that direction. We have not known anyone personally who has had Covid-19 until the last week. Now we have heard of a friend’s mother-in-law being infected. I think we will hear about a lot more cases soon.
How has your life changed because of Covid-19? How about those in your immediate family - how have their lives changed?
My life didn’t change drastically because I already was a bit of a homebody, but there have still been many impacts on my routine. I’ve done a lot more cooking because we don’t eat out now. We do takeout about once a week and then I’m preparing all the other meals. I was already using grocery delivery before this happened, but now that is all I am using. I haven’t been inside a store of any kind since the first week of March. When we do go places for takeout, we wear masks when we are in contact with others. It’s worth noting that some local friends of a friend have made fun of me for “overreacting”. For those who think that I’m being ridiculous, I just remind myself that they have no idea how this impacts our son Alex (more on that below) and that if something happens to me, that has a huge consequence for our whole family. Also, I had 2 bouts of bronchitis last year and one of them turned into pneumonia. My lungs just only recently quit hurting. I’m not going to mess with this. I also have type 2 diabetes. It’s very well controlled, but it still puts me a little bit of a higher risk.
We canceled our cleaning service (which was a luxury that we are just fine without). I’ve spent most of my life being our cleaning lady so that’s not a big deal. We have had to put off a lot of the finishing work that still needed to be done in our new home. We moved in the first week in February and there were still several things that needed completion. We are now moving back into a slow trickle of getting those projects finished. We haven’t been to church since the middle of March. We are not interacting with friends or extended family, except in socially distanced settings. We are not ready to change this yet.
Our son Alex (who has autism) was also already a homebody, but part of his routine was having 2 different support staff friends come into our home twice a week to spend time with him. They also took him out for meals and activities. We could not have them come for about 2 months and that was really hard on him. We are now resuming sessions with them, but they are different. Only hanging out here in our home in socially distanced ways - no activities in the community. This has all been very scary for him but I’m proud at how well he has handled it all.
My hubby Jeff used to travel constantly for business and spent very long hours at his office. He hasn’t traveled since the end of February. He has worked at home the majority of the time since the middle of March. His life changed the most in our family, but he has adapted well. We have never spent so much time together in our entire lives. We are really enjoying that! It’s funny that we used to do most everything separately and now we even go get the mail together.
Our daughter Riley and her husband live a few hundred miles away from us in an area that has not been as affected by the virus. It still has had an impact on their lives. Riley has diabetes so she is at a bit of a higher risk. She has recently gotten it under control so that helps a lot. She is mostly done with her schooling to become a massage therapist but has not been able to finish her clinical hours because of the shutdowns. Ryan very briefly lost his job because of cuts his company had to make but they quickly hired him back. We have only seen them once since the middle of February because of travel restrictions. That has been really hard! She was recently exposed to someone who had tested positive so she had to get a test last week. Thankfully, it came back negative!
What are the numbers like in your area (town, city, state, province, country, etc.)?
I’ve become a little obsessed with following the numbers locally, nationally, and globally. It’s probably not entirely healthy to focus on this so much, but I’m trying to understand what is happening. I felt so blindsided when it “hit” the U.S. because we really were not prepared. It did not have to be this way, but that is what happened. Part of it was because I was somewhat oblivious living in my own world focused on moving into our new home. That was a big project. I’m just lucky this all didn’t hit a few weeks earlier or we would have basically had no food in the house!
The numbers started out pretty small in Utah and we never had an official stay-at-home order. We were one of only 8 states to not have one. I did not (and still don’t) agree with that decision. This is an unpopular opinion around here. I’ve been disappointed to see how many fellow Utahns are not wearing masks and not taking this as seriously. Those are the ones who are visible though. I do believe that the majority are not acting this way. We do have a very young and healthy population here so that has been an advantage. Even now with the numbers growing rapidly, we still have one of the lowest Covid-19 death rates in the United States.
These are the Utah numbers as of June 13, 2020 - source New York Times - UTAH
Total cases = 13,981
Total deaths = 139
The numbers in the United States as of June 13, 2020 - source New York Times USA
Total cases = 2,074,400
Total deaths = 115,136
These are the worldwide numbers as of June 13, 2020 - source New York Times Global
Total cases = 7,693,700
Total deaths = 427,266
What do you want to remember most about this time?
While this is a very difficult time in the world, I want to remember the good things that have happened as a result. Lots of time with my hubby and son. A much slower pace of life. Working on fun projects like LEGO builds, puzzles, and watching shows together. Letting go of outside commitments and the busy feeling of life. I want to remember that the world came together for a while to stay home to “flatten the curve.” There was a sense of doing something for the good of humankind.
I hope you will take the time to answer these questions for yourself. Stay safe and be well! ❤️
