I’m sure that the Coronavirus pandemic will become a chapter in history books. They’ll list statistics about the number of people infected, the number of deaths, the number of borders closed, the number of jobs lost, the plummeting stock market prices. But the facts are rarely effective in telling the full story. The facts won’t tell you about the runners who trained for the Tokyo Marathon and never got a chance to run. The facts won’t tell you about the recovering alcoholics who couldn’t get to an AA meeting. The facts won’t tell you about the small, every day things we took for granted up until a few days ago. An office to go to, your daily conversation with the barista at the coffee shop, running with a group of people, turning on a hockey game at the end of a long day.

My story throughout this pandemic is one of extreme privilege - cancelling a trip to South Africa, though heartbreaking in it’s own right - is not the same as losing a job, losing a house, or losing a loved one.

But I would like to chronicle this time - on the brink of 30, and moving back to my childhood home for an indeterminate amount of time.

I hope you can relate to some of what I write. I hope you can laugh at some of it. I hope it can serve as a brief distraction. And I pray that we can all get through this.

DAY ONE

I’m two months away from 30 and today I waved goodbye to my NYC apartment, not sure when I’ll return. 2 weeks? 2 months? I left a note for myself: “Welcome home, we missed you! Light a candle and breathe.” Who knows when that will happen.

Packing for a Pandemic

What do you bring with you when you don’t know how long you’ll be gone, but know you’ll be spending a lot of long hours inside the house?

One Suitcase

Filled mainly with leggings, sweatpants and workout clothes - there won’t be much reason to wear real pants for awhile.

My Backpack

Two laptops, two chargers, some headphones and a lot of books I managed to pick up before the New York Public Library closed its doors.

Workout Equipment

A strong home workout routine is what I anticipate will keep me sane throughout this experience. Various exercise bands, a 25 lb plate, my vibrating foam roller and a pull-up bar were all packed into the car.

Food

Two bags of food - being back in the ‘burbs means Stop & Shop - not the millennials’ beloved Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. I’ll be rationing my LesserEvil paleo puffs and popcorn. Most importantly, a 6 pack of Captain Lawrence Orbital Tilt IPA.

Home Sweet Home

When I arrived home it hit me. For the first time in over a decade, I’ll be sharing a house with my parents. It’s not very big. There’s one bathroom.

The governor had just announced that all schools in NYC, Nassau County, Suffolk County and Westchester County would be closed for at least 2 weeks. Seeing the amount of calls, texts and emails my dad was getting and realizing the amount of stress he must be under was hard. So many people were looking to him for answers. No one wants to have to say “I don’t know,” to people who look to you for guidance. But these are unprecedented times. We are all having to figure it out on the fly.

Speaking out figuring things out - the first thing I did when I got home was attempt to do a crossword puzzle. Then I remembered how absolutely awful I am at crossword puzzles.

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but being told you should be staying in the house has had a weird psychological effect. It’s really got a way of making you want to go outside. Staying inside all day on a Sunday isn’t that crazy of a concept, but now, everyone is feeling trapped.

So my sister and I laced up our sneakers and walked the mile to my grandparents house. We called the house phone and told them to come to their front door and we stood on the sidewalk and yelled across the lawn to them before moving to the backyard and sitting an entire deck apart from each other. Though I hadn’t seen them in weeks, there were no big hugs or our classic faire la bise with big “MWAHS!” We couldn’t go in the house.

No return to Long Island would be complete without a bagel, and when my sister and I got home we loaded up everything bagels with vegetable cream cheese, lox and tomato.

There were a lot of episodes of Gossip Girl watched on the couch the rest of the day, too much scrolling through Instagram, and a lot of refreshing CNN’s live updates.

When my mom got home from work, we had dinner (bangers and mash - we maturely made sure to say bangers 99 times during dinner) and I had my fork swatted away when I temporarily forgot about coronavirus and went to take a bite of my moms’ food.

After dinner it was back to the couch, where I was already creating an indent of my ass, to watch the democratic debate.

Somewhere along the way (about halfway through my second IPA), we lost interest in the debate and instead devolved into laughter about the “computers on wheels” at my mom’s hospital.

“We can’t call it a cow because patients might think we are calling them cows - so it’s a wow!”

“What the fuck does the W stand for?!”

“I don’t know why we call it that, it’s just so we don’t call it a cow!”

The final thing I did on my first day home was make an Entenmann’s chocolate donut & mint chocolate chip ice cream sundae with lots of whipped cream. There are few things more nostalgic to me than an Entenmann’s chocolate “doe-doe.” I’ll never forget the time I was younger and my dad made me an ice cream sandwich out of one - a true revolutionary! As a ate my sweet treat on Sunday night I still felt nervous about the days to come, but also felt infinitely safer and secure being home.