{"id":567,"date":"2020-05-11T22:55:36","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T06:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/?p=567"},"modified":"2020-05-11T22:55:36","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T06:55:36","slug":"social-distancing-melancholymanbag-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/?p=567","title":{"rendered":"Social distancing, Melancholymanbag style"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
My wife and her sister, keeping their distance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I was younger, I had a recurring fantasy scenario where I would end up trapped in a room with a girl or woman that I had a crush on. The reason didn\u2019t matter (locked in by villains, emergency outside, earthquake, etc), what mattered is that I was with her. I guess necessities were magically taken care of. Since we were trapped together we would be forced to get to know each other, and invariably she would fall for me and we\u2019d be unable to resist each other and have hot locked-up sex. Anyways, embarrassing reveal aside, after falling for me, we would be together and we\u2019d be able to go back out into the normal world and live happily ever after. Eight weeks into our COVID-19 shelter-in-place, I look back at that fantasy scenario and laugh a bit, not in a mean-spirited way, but at the naivety and inexperience of that younger, hormone wracked version of me.
\nWhen we first started the shelter-in-place, I wasn\u2019t too worried. I had my wife to go through this process with, that is I wasn\u2019t alone, and I figured the kids would make do with whatever the schools ended up doing. Granted, at that point the schools were arguing for staying open. I would be working from home, but that would mean all kinds of free time for hobbies, cooking, etc. I also don\u2019t think I had comprehended that this would be going on for months. Another silly fantasy, but at age 45!<\/p>\n

I told my wife a few weeks in, and it\u2019s still true, that I couldn\u2019t ask for a better person to be stuck at home with. We\u2019ve traveled a lot together, spending time on planes, cramped buses, and trains. Stayed in small hotel rooms, basically been in each other\u2019s faces for weeks on end. Of course we\u2019d get annoyed with each other at some point, but in the end, we did well together, we appreciated each other\u2019s company and felt more connected after those trips. So I didn\u2019t my worries about being with my wife for long periods of time.<\/p>\n

The wrinkle for sheltering-in-place has been the kids. Were it just my wife and I, I can imagine a scenario where we\u2019d both work, find an excuse to take a break, talk, have sex, whatever, just enjoy each other. However, since the kids are home with us all day every day, things are much more complicated. Besides the obvious consequence of having absolutely no time alone, neither of us can do as much work as we\u2019d like. Without our intervention (my wife is doing a much better job than me with this) the kids wouldn\u2019t do much more than watch TV (younger one) or spend time on her phone (older one). To be fair, I would love the opportunity to read all the books I\u2019ve been meaning to get to, and catch on up movies and tv shows, so I get it. However, school is still in session, and we are trying to get the kids to participate in their \u201cdistance learning\u201d.<\/p>\n

As my wife told me, times of duress exacerbate underlying issues. For the kids this has meant that their learning disabilities have come roaring back in full force. My younger daughter is more willing to participate in the classes and meetings, probably because there is more structure thanks to her teacher, but she still has regressed in some behaviors, and is resistant to going outside at all. My older daughter\u2019s ADHD, and possibly other issues, seemed to be under more control before school was shifted to online but has made trying to get any school work done from home nearly impossible. For me, despite not feeling like I am experiencing my typical depression, a lot of the symptoms have surfaced. The lack of alone time, and dealing with the behaviors from my kids has made me question my competence as a father. On some level I know the girls have been thrown off by the change in schedule and their lack of social interactions that normally occur through school or sports. I also assume they are probably scared, although they don\u2019t show it. I look at some of my single friends, and the idea of being stuck at home without kids sounds wonderful. Does that make me a bad father? I just want to be left alone. I don\u2019t want to have to argue with kids to go outside, or to read instead of watching Youtube videos. I want to be able to lose myself with work, then read, or watch a TV show, or share some intimacy with my wife rather than be yelled at for asking my daughter to do a single lousy math worksheet. My wife and I didn\u2019t have much alone time before, but by the time evenings come around we are both so wiped that it seems like we have no energy for any time for connection or intimacy, so there is even less than before. I think we\u2019ve had sex maybe once in the past 8 weeks.<\/p>\n

Another theme that has been brought into relief is my age old issue of feeling that that I lack connection to people, or a sort of social isolation. I rarely see people outside of work and family to begin with, so it was a bummer to realize that socially, not a hell of a lot has changed. I can\u2019t go to my weekly self-defense class, and I can\u2019t go into my dad and sister\u2019s house, (I still seem them about once a week in their back yard) but otherwise there hasn\u2019t been a big shift in my social routine. And that bugs the fuck out of me. I try to stay in contact with friends via text, and I\u2019ve had a couple of video meetings with a friend from grad school (who lives on the East coast), but that\u2019s been it. Once again, I find myself in this unpleasant yet familiar place of realizing that I have a huge hole where the social aspect of my life should be. My wife often complained about having to go because she was tired, but she has a group of friends who regularly met up in person for dinners, or other events. They\u2019ve migrated online (and she still complains), but I envy her having a friend group that can feel comfortable talking to each other even on the computer.<\/p>\n

The final theme that has resurfaced are my feelings of inadequacy regarding my income and inability to provide enough to support my family enough so that we can buy a house. My older daughter loves to tell me how I have a shitty job, mostly because I don\u2019t earn enough for us to buy a house. I used to try to explain why having a job with health benefits, flexibility and, thank goodness given the situation, incredible stability and safety of employment is not \u201cshitty\u201d, but now I try to not react and get to the underlying issues. I know she\u2019s a teen, and for some reason spends hours on Zillow looking at houses, but it\u2019s hard. My wife is resentful because she is constantly reminded that out of her siblings and most of her high school and college friends, she the only one who doesn\u2019t own a house. On top of that she earns more than I do, and hates having to work so much AND still not be able to buy a house. We are so incredibly fortunate to have more or less stable jobs and live in a large space that despite its many faults offers us room to spread out. However, I often wonder where I went \u201cwrong\u201d? Was there some juncture where I could have made a different decision or decisions that would have led me to a place where I would \u201cearn enough\u201d? When did having a job that allows you to buy a million dollar house become the only measure of success?<\/p>\n

But I can\u2019t fight the situation. I\u2019ve actually had an incredibly hard time fully understanding the situation or writing about what has been going on because I feel like I can\u2019t fully process it. In the NY Times, I read a letter to the deceased Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez from his son <\/a> and he described exactly what I have been feeling<\/p>\n

\u201cA few weeks ago, during our first few days sequestered at home, my head was straining to explain to myself what it could all mean, or at least what could come out of it. I failed. The fog was too heavy. Now that things have become more quotidian, as things do eventually even in the most frightening wars, I am still unable to frame it all in any satisfying way\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n

However, it is what it is and I\u2019m trying to adapt. Doing a shitty job of it, but trying. In regards to the kids, rather than be that crotchety old man yelling at the kids to get off his damn lawn, I\u2019m trying to slow down in my reactions and see if I can feel compassion for them. On the mornings where I haven\u2019t stayed up ridiculously late and naturally wake up early, I try to meditate. I regularly join my wife for her online Pilates class three times a week, and I get out at least once a day, even if it is only to walk around the block. I think it\u2019s giving me a little bit more bandwidth, but not sure. As for the social issues and feelings of inadequacy, don\u2019t know how to deal with those, but I\u2019m thinking about them, and trying to cut myself a little slack at least. I also try to remind myself that we incredibly fortunate, billions of other people in the world right now are in terrible conditions. We aren\u2019t suffering for lack of housing and food and medicine and we have our health.<\/p>\n

So, as we continue into this pandemic I can say two things with certainty:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. My wife and I are going to have to spend some time without the kids once it becomes safe to travel and to drop off the kids somewhere. We need to re-establish our intimacy and have some fun together.<\/li>\n
  2. I\u2019m really glad that I was never stuck in a small room for a long period with someone I was attracted to, even more so had kids been in that room.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When I was younger, I had a recurring fantasy scenario where I would end up trapped in a room with a girl or woman that I had a crush on. The reason didn\u2019t matter (locked in by villains, emergency outside, earthquake, etc), what mattered is that I was with her. I guess necessities were magically … Continue reading Social distancing, Melancholymanbag style<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melancholymanbag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}