These are definitely difficult times for everyone.

If you are young and pre-school or still in school, you want to be outside playing or huddling with your friends.

If you are working, you may be lucky and can work from home, still receiving a pay-cheque – but many are unemployed trying to pay mortgages or rent and to make sense of the Federal and Provincial government programs designed to help ease the financial pain and the anxiety. So far – they sound good, but anxiety grows when trying to figure them out while waiting for them to actually be of use.

If you are retired – likely the best case scenario – unless you depend on income from investments to keep you going. OAS and CPP alone don’t cut it and the market is in the toilet – nobody knows for how long.

I got a head-start on this physical distancing with a nasty chest cold just before Coronavirus became a household word. Perhaps that was a good thing – but it just added 2 weeks to what already seems like an awfully long time to be house-bound. While I don’t get cabin fever as some people do, I don’t seem to be able to settle long enough to do anything constructive like cleaning out closets or drawers never mind spring cleaning. I flit from reading the newspaper in the morning, to working on a jigsaw puzzle to checking my email, to reading a book,to chatting on the phone with friends, to watching what is probably way too much news (there doesn’t seem to be much else on TV), to taking a nap, and making up my grocery list for delivery that is a week away (first available delivery slot). I go to bed early and get up when I wake up.

I think we are in this for the long haul and life with COVID-19 will probably create a “new normal” once we can get back to whatever that is.

This is an extremely nasty virus that takes lives no matter your age or your status in life, and is extremely ugly for anyone with existing medical conditions. There aren’t too many of us over 70 that aren’t dealing with something.

To my friends, neighbours and family – I think about all of you often and hope that you stay safe and stay well.

Sue