We went to the grocery store today. We normally go once a week and this visit was no different. Except it was.

Welcome to the new normal, where toilet paper can’t be found and a worker at the entrance of the store offers a squirt of hand sanitizer and a free wipe of the cart handle.

Did we get toilet paper? No. We went to another store – still none – but I did score the last two packages of flushable wipes for sensitive skin, thank-ya-very-much.

Hubby is working from home for at least a few days (mandatorily) and I am not. I shall be dragging my old hiney and lifelong asthma’d lungs into the office. I hope I’ll be okay.

You know, I wasn’t worried. Oh, I was concerned- about my parents and children and grandson, mostly – but not about us. We are, after all, in Canada. Home of government medical care and quiet fortitude. Peaceful, apologetic lives. No freaking out here. At least, I didn’t.

Until today.

I was out in it and witnessed the greed of hoarders (no TP, no hand sanitizers and soaps, limited choices in staples), frazzled checkers (“I can’t do two things at once!” she said with more than a hint of frustration, as I mentioned the debit machine wasn’t working). In fact, I had to go to another aisle to pay. And I didn’t respond in anger. She sighed and for a moment, I saw the lines on her face soften.

In the area where I live, there are very few diagnoses of the virus. Very few. I just read that the worst is yet to come.

Life. It’s kinda scary right now. Talk about anxiety! Ugh.

What else is new?

Um. I feel okay. Still very tired. Still not quite where I’d like to be on the learning curve at work. But better!

My husband, parents, children and grandson are healthy. I am, too.

❤️