Reentry

Strangely enough, now comes the hard part of social distancing and dealing with the scourge that is the coronavirus.

Reentry.

In a little more than a week, Tennessee's governor, Bill Lee, and several other governors of southern states, are going to life the stay at home orders and begin to open up the economy, whatever the hell that mean.  As if the economy is like the water at our house.  Turn it off, then turn it on again.

For someone like me - someone who takes this disease seriously - and is afraid of getting it and dying from it, returning to business as usual is a frightening prospect.  I get the idea that at some point business have to reopen in some form or fashion.  In my view, though, the better move would have been to continue with the stay at home order through the month of May.  Another month would have given the U.S. additional time to ramp up testing capacity and for citizens to continue to flatten the curve, as they say, by social distancing.

Now, though, warmer weather is here and our local and state leaders - and our feckless president, Donald Trump - are banging the economic drum, as a result of which people are gathering in groups, failing to move aside and let others pass by (at least 6 feet away), and, I'm sure, relaxing the good hygiene habits we all learned the last two months.  In other words, people are letting their guards down because they want to believe that the worst of this is behind us.

I hope that's the case but I'm afraid it's not.  I think the coronavirus is going to come roaring back as many people foolishly return to old habits and stop social distancing in there every day lives.  Way too few people are wearing masks in public, especially at grocery stores or during curbside pickup at restaurants of coffee shops.

I'm not ready to leave the cocoon of safety that Jude and I have created for our family - for the boys - in our house and neighborhood.  I'm not ready to break the new routines we've developed.  Lots of time to ourselves, lots of movies and reading, and lots of board game playing.  I'm not ready to go back into the office every day and work in close contact with people that work for me, with clients, and other attorneys.  I don't think it's safe.  Not yet.

The boys are out of school for the rest of the year.  All schools in Tennessee are out of school the rest of the year.  If it's not safe enough to send the kids back to school, how can it be safe enough to return everyone to work?  It doesn't make sense to me.  What are people - people like us - going to do for childcare in May?  Stay home, somehow, with J.P. and Joe, or entrust their care to someone else who may infect them, make them sick, and make us sick.  It's a terrible situation to be in, not just for us, of course, but for so many families.

What a mess.

So many questions.  So few answers.