Romance And Fear in the Age of COVID-19

Finding romance during a terrifying time in our world seems like it should be at the bottom of the list. Looking at the combination of mystery and excitement and love that the pandemic of COVID-19 has brought out in our world, however, I can’t help but see it. For every fearful citizen, there is another offering comfort. For every uncertain child, there is a teacher worrying. For every out-of-work adult, there is a resource to help support.

COVID – 19 has worked itself around the world from Italy to Jordan to the United States. Each country is handling the pandemic differently. They are still working on a vaccine.

Even as we fear the spread of a disease we cannot understand or control yet – even as we avoid people and cross the street to distance ourselves – we come together in different and new ways. Parents begin community-wide online challenges and teambuilding activities, like scavenger hunts and Facetime dance parties. Teachers discover unique ways to continue developing the students they’ve grown to care about, like reading bedtime stories on Facebook live.

I don’t care what people say, who or where this pandemic is coming from (not just physically, but ultimately). This illness and the nearly worldwide quarantine brought on by it are someone’s way of saying slow down and bring it back to basics. You humans think you’re hot shit? Take a seat and view your mortality up close and personal. Humility brought on by something as basic and age-old as a virus.

We humans needed a kick in the pants. Ignoring even the threat of climate change for profit, the Age of Trump and me-me-me, sports and television stars being paid more than lifesaving nurses and EMTs or lifechanging educators, the almost more worrisome epidemic of technology in societies that should be better, the list goes on and on. World problems galore. And the solutions continuously lay in our hands. Yet we did next-to-nothing.

Now we’re forced to do nothing. As we are all paused, I suggest we consider what is really important in life: postive relationships, active citizenship, life accountability, upstanding ethics, pure morals, willingly giving, openly sharing, and finally finding balance.

With the situation of quarantine in some countries, mother nature is recovering. They say in Italy, the waters of Venice are already cleaner and clearer than they’ve been in decades. Makes me wonder what would this earth be like without the influence of humans?

Look to the future as a chance to begin again. Make changes now, while there’s time. Find your focus. Learn a new skill. Discover your faith. Decrease your imprint on our resources. Make a new friend. Finish that project. Give to a charity. Help a neighbor. Find the priorities that are right for you, while being helpful to your family, friends, community, and world. Change doesn’t happen overnight, but with the weeks we’ve been given are a chance to start.