DOLLAR STORE TOILET SCRUBBERS AND COVID

I think most of us learned some important lessons from COVID. I learned a lot about people. But  most importantly, myself. It was a God sent personal catharsis…a very deep cleansing of the soul and a mind de-clutterer.     

I realized I did not need half the things I thought I did. And the things I thought I could not do, I did. The smaller the gift, the greater the meaning. 

I realized I had a lot in me I didn’t know…like I don’t need a cleaning lady. I cleaned my bathrooms, did my laundry, cleaned my floors like a big girl. It’s not like Service Pro came in and wizzed around in yellow suits armed with spray guns and military oxygen masks, but I got the job done. I started to realize that nobody cares. Is it basic clean?  Did I stick my hand in the bowl and scrub the suction hole? I did. Did I scrub around the rim? I did. And, all with disposable dollar store brushes and Spanish toilet bowl cleaner.
I channeled a hybrid of Carolyn Ingalls and June Cleaver and did it all. I started comparing the top toilet brushes and plungers online, and I gotta tell you, it makes a difference.

I cooked and baked like Julia Child and Sylvia Weinstok rented a beach house together. I am a huuuuuge stresser, but I learned that stress can be productive. I bought three new brownie pans instead of three new sweaters, and I learned how to  combat culinary erreur(s.) I also learned that I should have gone to school and I could have been a chef on Food Network. Saving that for the next pandemic. I cooked for those who could not cook for themselves and their families, set the table for thebenevolentcaterer.com, and I was full on the joy that accompanies altruism.    

I learned that wearing new clothes every day was really not important. Imagine that! As a matter of fact, I really warmed up to COVID fashion, which is wearing loose shit…no bra and a t-shirt every day. My most comfy sweats had holes in the thighs and vajayjay zone. I understand why the rednecks do what they do, and hibernate with each other.
It’s so much less stressful and comfortable. My skin and my boobs have been coverless for four months. I put on a real bra the other day…with wires, and I thought I had to go to the ER it was so uncomfortable. I will never make fun of women who don’t wear bras ever again. I get it, now. It’s kind of liberating…free flowing. Now I understand hippie life.  It was ok.  All, good, dude. Let’s pick dandelions and speak to John Lennon. 

I learned that working out six days a week and staying in your work out clothes is ok. It’s even ok not to shower. I swore I was not going to gain the COVID 15…and look liked an overwraught, bugged out fat mother of eight. I braved the restrictions, and trainer Greg showed up like a champ for our basement workouts. In the last few weeks I started running six times a week, and I feel awesome.   
 
I started a vitamin regimen because I had time to actually order Kelly Ripa’s personalized vitamins online. My night time pack includes melatonin for sweet dreams.  I was so excited! They even have my name on it in case I forget who I am…each little package says…”Morning,Linda” or “Evening,Linda.” They speak to me like no one in my house does.

I also ordered all that stupid Instagram and Facebook crap that looks like it really works…some of it still hasn’t arrived, but I am hopeful my peel off booties that pull your skin and your callouses off at the same time will reveal before summer’s end.   

My love for animals was unwrapped even further and with fervent emotion when my oldest daughter, Brynn started to foster puppies. It made my spirits leap like a six year old kid just to sit and play and kiss those little noses and feel the palpitation of that mini heart in your hands. I would go to sleep at night just dying to wake up the next morning to see them go puppy nuts when I came in. I learned that every one of God’s creatures was created with love and needs love. The bond of animal to man is both innate and inexplicable. 

I learned that some people absorbed jack shit from this quarantine and just worried about themselves and cried every day over BS minutia instead of adjusting. Cry babies who could not teach their kids how to cope over missing milestones. I get it. It’s hard.  Life is hard. We are all sensitive and missing out right now…but it’s not just you. It’s all of us. Businesses, schools, everything and everyone was affected.  My father said, when there is no turning back, find an alternative…don’t focus on what is done. Stop acting like Shop Rite opened just so you could get your raisin swirl bread and Dr. Pepper.  Accommodate and cooperate.  

I learned to never knock it till you try it…homesechooling. As much as the concept lacks any kind or normalcy for childhood development especially the social aspects…I would happily do it again if needed. That said, we would need waaaaaaaay better guidance to succeed, but having my children home with no where to go but home, was miraculous. I loved watching Eva make scrambled eggs with pods in her ears during math class…and Gianmarco sleeping till whenever teen titans told him it was time to get up…and listening to high school history lessons and stalking a teacher’s living room or the best is a mic the teacher thought wasn’t live…

I empathized with those who lost loved ones they could never hold in their last hours, and who would gladly give up four months at the gym never dine out again or get their nails done to have just that one moment, sixty seconds in time to say goodbye. When I saw on social media what people were bitching about and their “rights” being violated, I wanted to post…”try a ventilator…or chemo.”

I learned that this ugliness, dubbed COVID was a unifying evil. A pandemic that was not just a health issue, but second to death, it became the great equalizer. Not one person in this world was immune…we all followed the same protocol, epoxied ourselves to the same press conferences. Not one of us was allowed a special privilege not bestowed on someone else, and we became akin to those who shared completely different cultures and continents. We were humbled and rendered helpless by a virus. Just a virus. Not one individual could communicate with another without it’s mention. Children spoke of it’s wondrous ability to kick school’s butt for half a year.  Everyone was quarantined. No one was safe. It was every single one of us. Nowhere in my lifetime or in history has an entire world, not just a city, or a nation been on the same plane regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, economic stature, age, or physical ability. Even the great divide of the 21st century, politics, didn’t stand a chance against the evil that was COVID.

Although my personal growth during this quarantine was mine alone to recognize, we all need to diagnosticate that this was not an accident let loose from a lab in Wuhan.    It was born in an attempt to unify the world and hopefully debase us into realizing we are truly dust in the wind..fragile and humanly equal. Some got this, others did not.
And, those that did not are the same, non-introspective slobs they were prior. Some things will never change, but if you had the ability to co mingle with the incognito gifts we received from this challenge, become more introspective, loving, less self centered and praise your healthy, basic life, you have the gift of COVID…embrace it and never forget it.