Sarah O'Connor

It’s a weird time right now. Big events and venues are closing and everyone just kind of seems to be drifting, or at least that’s how I’m feeling right now. Like a current is slowly dragging me along, not out to sea or anywhere dangerous, I don’t know exactly where it wants me to go. I guess it’s more like a lazy river, being pulled along and following the path before me, though I don’t know what that path is, none of us do.

Recently the HamilTEN Festival was cancelled which was disappointing but not surprising, and I acknowledge it as a good decision to be safe. Of course more things have been cancelled, from hockey to concerts to conventions to Disney. My dad is upset his MeetUp groups are cancelled because he relies on them for social interaction.

And closing everything down and reducing hours is a good thing, after seeing how quickly the coronavirus spreads I’m happy that Canada is taking the necessary precautions to keep citizens safe. But we’re in unknown territory, and the unknown is always scary. When people don’t have answers to something they assume the worst, start to panic and panic is a worse infection.

And I understand the worry, the fear. My sister has an autoimmune disease so I worry about her, about keeping her safe, keeping myself safe to keep her safe. And I think she’ll be fine, that we’ll be fine, but the unknown has a soft voice that digs into the mind, makes you sleepless.

I’m not panicking, not stocking up on toilet paper or doing Costco runs, but I’m drifting in this period of adjustment, this lack of social interaction that is for the good but will take time to adapt too. Because people are social, and now we have to change how we interact with each other, how the next few days will go. Because we don’t know what’s happening, don’t know what the next day could bring. So we have to take it one day at a time, take the turns and dips where the current drags us until we reach the other side.

What else is there to do?