Missing Places

Some are advising that we don't read too much news about Covid 19.

We need to take breaks from it.

Of course.

Yeah. We do.

But I feel I'm actually better off getting a consistent dose of World War C via news articles, Twitter, Instagram, discussions with Tim, etc.

I do other things, of course. But World War C is frequently sprinkled in-between the other things.

Sometimes I take a long break, though. Or maybe it's not about length. Maybe it's the strength of the distraction.

It sometimes happens when I'm writing my screenplays. It happens when Tim and I sit down to watch our TV shows together—The Outsider and now The Handmaid's Tale.

I'll forget.

And then I remember.

Sometimes it's not even a negative feeling. 

Sometimes it's remembering and feeling, Wow.  Our life is actually as interesting, or more interesting, than fiction now.

Other times I feel a little bit trapped.  

I think I feel much less trapped than many other people—people who are in tighter spaces and people that are extroverts who love going out.

But I do feel a tiny bit trapped occasionally. 

In those moments, I feel like we're haunting our house. And like in Beetlejuice, if I step too far from the perimeter, the sandworms will get me. 

I think one thing that probably makes people feel more trapped is missing things—favorite restaurants, school, movie theaters, Starbucks, their grandma's house, etc. 

I haven't missed many places yet. The biggest urge/twinge I've had is for the food shop in IKEA.  It just came to me randomly one day.  I want to go to IKEA.

I also maybe miss the movie theater a little bit. That was one of the last places we went, so maybe that's why.

We've grown to love the Alamo Drafthouse. It's kind of far from our house, though. So we made a rule that we'd go once a month. 

We missed February. I think?

And then in the beginning of March, we went to see Birds of Prey.  I had the idea that things might be closing down and suggested that we should maybe see multiple movies in March...before the shit hit the fan.

The shit hit the fan before we got around to implementing that plan.

Anyway....

I had to take a bathroom break while writing this post.

While on the toilet, I started to think that this is kind of stupid. This post. Missing things. Because though, lately, I do miss certain places a little bit. It's nothing new. I often miss places when we're NOT stuck inside our houses. 

I long for places like Disney World, Sydney, New York, Japan, London....

So what's the difference between being stuck in my house when I feel like going to IKEA vs being trapped in Fort Worth when I want to be in Epcot or walking around Tokyo?

Still. It would be nice if we can all get back to life outside our homes. Someday. It doesn't have to be next week or even next month.  But I do hope in a year or so, we're saying things like, Remember that one spring where we all had to stay in our homes and so much in the world was closed? INSTEAD of saying things like, Remember way back when we used to leave our house and see other people...and we didn't wear masks and we didn't have to stay six feet apart? Sometimes we even hugged each other.  And we used to go to restaurants and stores and movie theaters. And we rode on airplanes? Remember that..... 

Well.... but more importantly. Hopefully we're alive.

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-beloved to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online, a novel by Dina Roberts