How Steph and I negotiate “safety” during the pandemic
It recently occurred to me that although we’re in month five of the pandemic, my wife Steph and I have yet to discuss how we each want to live for the foreseeable future. Like, the nuts and bolts of staying safe – risks we’re willing to take in the name of quality-of-life during COVID.
If you know anything about me, you’re probably as surprised as I am. I’m a big proponent of hammering out relationship expectations and memorializing the compromises we land on at a level of detail that could make an attorney uncomfortable.
So when my assistant made an offhanded comment to me about admiring how Steph and I have decided to live during COVID, it gave me pause…
We never decided anything. We fell into a pattern without ever discussing it.
We’re both germaphobes, which you’d think would make us compatible during a plague.
As it turns out, there are different levels of germaphobia.
And when one partner is more of something than the other, both tend to focus on meeting the needs of the person at the highest end of the neurotic spectrum, leaving a fog of vagueness around the less-crazy partner’s wants and needs.
I am the less crazy partner in this scenario, which is unusual.
At least I think I am. I don’t really know, because Steph is so expressive about wanting to live through this pandemic that I mostly find myself troubleshooting her hourly concerns instead of questioning what my own threshold for death is.
This virus checks every box on my wife’s Greatest Fears list. And it doesn’t help that we’re both shrinks who are tasked with containing our client’s anxieties, which of course mirror our own, as we muddle our way through the uncertainty of 2020.
To be clear, it’s really convenient for me to hyperfocus on Steph, my clients, my friends, and my family. My head is not a place I like to visit often. It can be grim.
But once I’m aware of my blind spot, I can’t help but poke around at my feelings. Try to unearth my personal COVID boundaries.
My doorway to this exercise goes like this:
If you lived alone, Darcy Mara Sterling, how would you balance your need for quality of life against your need for life.
Ugh. Such. Adult. Questions.
In many ways, lockdown was easier. Nothing to contemplate. No human contact whatsoever.
But New York City is in phase four of reopening. And Steph and I are still living in phase one.
How do you want to live your life, Darcy?
I WANT A FUCKING GOVERNMENT THAT BELIEVES IN SCIENCE AND EXPERTS TO TELL ME WHAT IS SAFE!
That’s not your reality, Darcy. You have to figure this out yourself.
UGH!!!! WHERE ARE ALL THE ADULTS IN MY LIFE?
You’re an adult.
I let out a sigh that lasts upwards of five seconds and resolve to release my resistance.
In its wake comes silence, and in the silence it hits me: There is an adult who has the answers.
He is a science reporter for the New York Times who Steph and I’ve listened to throughout the pandemic. His responses to hard questions are so straight-forward and devoid of pleasantries that I’ve nicknamed him Doom and Gloom.
To Steph, he is the most validating human in the world. She is such a fan of his that she pretends not to know who I’m referencing when I call him by his pet name.
Around midnight Friday night, I email Doom and Gloom, aka Donald G. McNeil Jr. – one New Yorker to another – and ask if he’ll answer some questions for me.
I wake to an email. Send your questions, he says.
The list of questions I send him is voluminous. Greedy. Overreaching. I know this and yet I cannot control myself. Having lived in a country devoid of leadership for three plus years, I feel like I’m getting an opportunity to communicate with an oracle.
HIs answers come just hours later. They are more than I asked for. Generous. He is living up to his reputation in my home.
I read his answers aloud to Steph, who is equally eager to hear them.
My opening question to him asks what phase he’s living in. He is not living in a phase, he says. Phases are for cities. Regions. Not humans.
He takes reasonable risks based on the data. New York City has low numbers at the moment, so we can take more chances than we could two months ago. Still, I need to remember that what I’m doing is just that: taking chances.
He went into lockdown on or about March 12th – two weeks after Steph went into lockdown and a week after I did. At the time, some New Yorkers were avoiding the virus by not drinking Corona beer and by abstaining from Chinese food. No, he’s not kidding.
Wiping down groceries with Clorox is something he no longer does – stopped doing it about a month ago. Steph and I glance sideways at each other as we read this. We are those white people who buy Clorox in volume and who spend 30+ minutes a day disinfecting every new item that enters our home.
He has a new granddaughter, born at the top of the pandemic, who he’s only ever seen through FaceTime. He’s planning to take a walk with his daughter and the baby soon, where he’ll look at her from a six foot distance. Reading this brings tears to my eyes.
His friends and he have managed to play socially-distanced softball. “You can’t live without some fun,” he says, which makes my cheeks a little warm. Fun isn’t something I’ve thought much about this year.
I ask him how his girlfriend and he negotiate differences around their COVID boundaries.
“My girlfriend would be more loose about what she does, but she knows how careful I am, and she thinks I’m generally right about this stuff, so she follows my lead. She’s a hugger, so it’s hard for her.”
I feel her pain, I think to myself, and in that moment I feel Steph’s hand rest on my back. She knows it’s been hard for me, too.
We finish his email and I close my laptop. I feel a little embarrassed, like I’ve been following a set of rules intended to separate the thinkers from the sheep. But mostly, I feel like the weight of a truck was just lifted off my shoulders.
“What do you think?” I ask Steph as she refills our wine.
“I think you should tell him we think he’s living recklessly,” she says, and we laugh in a way we haven’t in months.
When we come up for air I can see that Steph is mirroring the lightness I feel. And as we begin the conversation about how we want to live during COVID, McNeil’s words echo in my head:
“If you are living in terror of the virus, I think you’re being too cautious. That could change In the fall, though.”
I am struck by his choice of words. He speaks of terror, which is a frequency we’ve been vibrating in for months.
I feel no judgment coming from him. And because of that, I land in a place of compassion. Both for myself and for Steph.
These are hard times to navigate. We can relax a little. Follow the data. The numbers. And make slow, minor changes accordingly.