I always knew an apocalypse was coming. Didn’t you always feel it looming, too faint to pin down, always just out of reach? Maybe you didn’t. My therapist says that feeling is childhood trauma, not premonition, but maybe it’s both.
I thought the apocalypse would be different though. I thought we’d all be eating canned beans in underground bunkers and I was real concerned about the bathroom options. I didn’t expect that Amazon would still deliver and that we could wait out the end of the world in our normal homes with working indoor plumbing.
We all have a story of how we first came to know, to really understand something was happening. We’re all still coming to know it. In January, a reporter I follow who has covered a lot of stories from Asia posted her concern about a new virus she was hearing about in Wuhan. From what she was hearing, it could really be something different and impact everyone.
I started paying attention.
I didn’t know then though, right? We were traveling most of February and by the time we got home near the end of the month, I thought I did know. I got ready (I thought I got ready) and started self-isolation on March 1st. I’ve only been in buildings with other people twice since then, both for medical reasons.
As it always goes with humans, I thought I was prepared. I thought I knew what was coming. Only four and a half months later, I can look back and see how much I didn’t see, couldn’t see.
How much can I not see now? How much am I not preparing for? Anyway, wiring from childhood trauma sure. But also, on that last grocery run at the end of February, I bought toilet paper, of course. But just one pack. I didn’t foresee the world would run out. And OK, we haven’t run out. But isn’t that because once I realized the world was running out, I signed up for restocking alerts on every site I could find, even if the toilet paper was terrible? Yes. Do I have terrible toilet paper now, some of which even is lavender-scented even though I’m allergic to lavender? Yes. But did I run out? Exactly. I did not. Will I run out in the future? No, because I have a case of extra terrible toilet paper (worse than the lavender kind) intended for commercial purchase that is probably half-ply and made up possibly scratchy leaves and doesn’t fit on a regular holder stored in my garage.
I have a lot more to say about trauma responses to the world as we know it ending and also about how we’re all creating a new world in the waiting. I can’t actually say any of it to anyone right now so the next best thing is writing it down and maybe sometime someone will read it. That’s sort of like talking to someone, just slower and less certain.