My kids’ gym sent out a poll this week, asking if parents would be OK sending gymnasts back to practice as California is gearing up to reopen. They talked about limited number of children, social distancing, increased disinfecting, and all gymnasts doing 30 days of basic core work (read: only things they could do at 6 feet of distance from one another, and with no instructor intervention) to get up to speed after months out of practice.

I have serious doubts the huggy, high-fiving, used-to-being-spotted band of close-knit kids will be able to keep distance. I mean, maybe at first. But as things get normalized, they will be working against the muscle memory of years of togetherness. When I try to think of a scenario in which they would always remember to stay apart, it feels like something would have to break in them that would fundamentally change who they are in relationship to each other.

I have to keep reminding myself that open or not, governmentally approved or not, going back would be a risk, maybe a significant one. Reopening without a vaccine or cure or even widespread testing seems to me like opening the faucet just enough to fill those hospitals to capacity, with the hope that people will get sick in reasonable numbers, and die in reasonable numbers, and eventually create some kind of herd immunity. Or failing that, prop up the economy until some genius comes up with a real solution. Going back to the gym increases the likelihood of death or permanent injury for our whole family.

From that angle, it’s an obvious choice. Stay in. Alive is better than gymnastics. As people on the internet seem so fond of saying, All you have to do to be a hero is sit on your ass and watch Netflix.

I took a nap the other day. I woke up in the morning already tired and sore and there were no kids to pick up from school or places to be, and thus no reason not to indulge in an afternoon nap. But it worries me how much I’m sleeping lately, so I set the alarm. When it went off, I hovered in that strange half-awake place for a while, struggling to fully come to consciousness.

I kept searching for a reason to get up. Taking care of kids was a good one, except they were quietly working. They have been so quiet since quarantine! Without them to drag me from sleep, I ticked off my timeworn list. But of course there were no errand to run, no obligations needing attention at specific o’clock. No escape to Target, or social group meeting or get-away-date-night to look forward to, no reason to put on pants.

I feel like I am beating the dead horse you all are already living inside, but there was nothing except to eventually make another dinner, play another card game, watch another TV thing, stretching into the foreseeable future, which is all one strange, warped day because nothing of distinction separates time anymore.

Even screen time is no reason to drag myself from bed. Ah, internet! Once my trusted friend, a true source of amusement, education and connection. Now I look at you and think we are all going to die. Probably over the next two years. I can’t watch any more of our national leadership perpetually creating new levels of  dysfunction and horror, so much so that even months old administrative outrages and horrors are pushed aside by the largess of new ones. Although sometimes I wonder what’s going to be happening by November that will make our current clusterfuck of a nightmare seem like the good old days.

Too dark? Sorry. My point being that if this is happening to me, I can only imagine what it’s doing to the kids, who are used to much more structure and exercise and sense of general safety, none of which I can fully provide anymore. As I mentioned, they are so quiet, as if truly sheltering in place, same as other baby animals that instinctively freeze in the face of danger.

Which leaves me in this really tough place. Going back to the gym increases the likelihood of death. I know this. But what’s less clear to me is what’s happening to them on the inside now, isolated for what honestly might be years if we decide/are even able to shelter in place until a vaccine becomes available. It’s easy to say sitting on your couch is better than death. Of course it is. But I’m increasingly worried about the long term mental health effects for my kids, and their entire generation, who would probably otherwise be getting ready to live on their own, and falling in love with someone across the room, and figuring out who they are in relation to others around them; making plans for who they will become in relation to the world. Instead, they are very quiet and not moving much.

Escapism Recommendations:

Never Have I Ever, on Netflix, which presses hard on the TV-14 rating, but the older kids screamed laughter and loved it.

Normal People, on Hulu. Heads up, it has art house style full dude nudez and plenty of sex scenes (TW: talk of suicide, physical abuse). But also the kind of engrossing relationship dialogue that makes lots of standard love stories seem fake and tinny by comparison. FWIW, I appreciated the equal degrees of nudity and crying among the guy and girl.