Where do you draw the line?

Lockdown progress report for May 24, 2020

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My poor mom. I wouldn’t say that I exactly “yelled” at her, because it would have implied that I was angry. It was more that I was flabbergasted and deeply concerned, so I raised my voice and…

Yeah, I yelled at my mother. Sigh.

I call my mother pretty faithfully once per week and we chat for about an hour to an hour and a half. Last weekend, she informed me that my Aunt and Uncle would be driving down from Missouri to spend Memorial Day Weekend with her and my dad in the Atlanta area.

No, no, no, no.

“Mom, what are you thinking?! We’re in the middle of a pandemic, and that is NOT practicing safe social distancing!”

I started to lay out my case for why the trip must absolutely be canceled while my mother listened and occasionally interjected with “That’s true” or “That’s a good point.”

I told her about my friend K, who I am about 90 percent certain was hospitalized with COVID-19 without a formal diagnosis back in late February. I remember visiting K in the hospital with LT, and K was baffled about being hospitalized at all — the only other time she’d ever been in a hospital, she told us, was when she gave birth. Now, despite the respiratory treatments she was receiving several times per day, she Just. Couldn’t. Breathe.

“And that,” I told Mom, “was a healthy 40 year-old. What if Aunt and Uncle bring it with them and you get it?” (Hint: Mom has a rare genetic disorder that causes her to have a weak immune system.) “What if Dad gets it?” (Hint: Dad has asthma.) “Or, God help us, what if Uncle ___ gets it while he’s staying with you guys?” (Hint: Uncle ___ has lupus along with a host of other serious health issues.)

I also reminded Mom of the man from Albany, GA, who innocently hugged people at his friend’s funeral in Atlanta, then came home and infected half the dang town.

Following my pleas of ethos and pathos, I also brought out a more pragmatic logos argument, because I know my mom:

“And how are you going to entertain them while they are with you? Is everything really open already?”

(In Georgia, the governor has let everything open back up, but that doesn’t mean all businesses agree with him; many remain closed.)

“Well, that’s true,” my mom mused. “I checked online and World of Coke is still closed. Atlanta Botanical Gardens is open, but the tickets are timed, so…”

“See?” I said, triumphant. “There won’t be anything for them to do, anyway.”

Then my mom said, “But what do I do? Just call up [her sister-in-law] and tell them ‘You can’t come’?”

“YES!” I shouted (okay, this is where I admit that I yelled). “That is exactly what you do!”

“But that seems really… socially awkward.”

“IT’S A PANDEMIC!” (I was definitely in all caps by this point in the conversation.) “YOU CAN BE A LITTLE AWKWARD IN THE NAME OF BEING SAFE!!!!”

We all draw the line in a different place.

I’m happy to report that going off on my poor mother worked in the end, even though I feel somewhat guilty for yelling like I did. She texted her s-i-l after she got off the phone with me and said maybe it would be better if they delayed their visit until later in the year, when things weren’t so crazy. My aunt said she had actually been thinking the same thing and was glad my mom thought so, too.

Which was immensely relieving for my mom, because, despite being an “older adult” in a “high-risk group,” being socially awkward for her is far more frightening than COVID-19.

But the whole situation made me think about how all of us draw the line in a different place these days, especially now, as coronavirus restrictions are starting to relax all over the globe.

My friend F in South Carolina is extremely paranoid, and angry at her governor for being so slow to enact social distancing guidelines and then so quick to lift them. Case-in-point: Her first cousin died tragically and suddenly last week, but she opted to skip the funeral, even though she had assurances that there would be no hugging and everyone would stay six feet away. Her attendance triggered anger within her grieving family, but she didn’t let that sway her.

Mom, meanwhile, who is nothing if not a creature of habit, has never once even considered given up her weekly Sunday morning grocery shopping trip, and as soon as they reopened the gym, she was back to her daily three-hour workouts, over my objections. (That battle wasn’t one I was going to win, so I have given up on it.)

LT, by contrast, orders 100 percent of her groceries online and does her Target shopping only via pick-up orders, and yells at me for going to the grocery store as often as I do (about once every 10 to 12 days).

And I met a woman recently who complained about people in her neighborhood who walk, jog, or bike without a mask. I said she would hate me, then, because I walk and jog without a mask, but I do get as far away from others as possible.

Speaking of walks, I still walk with K about once per week. We don’t touch; we never carpool. Likewise, I hang out with LT upon occasion, sunning on her driveway from six feet away while the kids play around us and we chat for hours. Even these limited social interactions still carry risk, but at some point, caring for my mental health by spending time with the people I love outweighs the potential risk of infection.

It’s hard to know where the line SHOULD be drawn.

One of the most frustrating parts of this whole experience is trying to figure out where to draw the line in the first place. We in the U.S. have never had a cohesive national strategy, and we certainly cannot trust our politicians, especially not in an election year. Trump isn’t trustworthy on his best days, and even though I’ll vote for a pineapple in sunglasses over him come fall, his rivals certainly smell blood in the water and have been politicizing this crisis every bit as much as he is, so I don’t particularly trust them, either.

I have no qualms about remaining in shutdown-mode to save lives, but I do sometimes wonder if health officials have tried as hard as they can to think of creative ways for businesses to reopen safely. After all, the vast majority of health officials are white collar workers who are not in danger of not being able to pay their rent or feed their families next month.

Would they sing a different tune if the associated economic crisis hit closer to home? Or, on the other hand, are they right when they say that governors and mayors who relax restrictions too quickly are actually going to make the economic crisis worse in the end?

It’s hard to know, although it is admittedly frustrating to watch other nations successfully beat back coronavirus cases and start to open everything back up while we are still muddling along, arguing amongst ourselves, and seeing our cases continue to grow.

I suppose at this point, complaining about the lack of a national plan or clarity from the people who are supposed to be leaders is all crying over spilt milk. And it’s clear that a big chunk of the country is not going to listen to health officials anymore no matter how reasonable they’re being. Again, that milk is already on the floor, no use complaining about it.

So I suppose all we can do now is be individually responsible according to our own best judgment, negotiating these rough and uncharted waters with our friends and family as best we can, and just pray that a vaccine comes sooner rather than later.