This week The New York Times published an article about Pandemic Fatigue. It was interesting, and definitely something I’ve witnessed in the population around me. The article discusses the replacing of the fear that many people felt in the Spring with the fatigue that results from living with continual upheaval. I live in a corner of the country where much of the population has decided they’re done with it, and they are ignoring the recommendations. No masks or social distancing for them!
What I think we’ll
see in the coming years will be various forms of PTSD. Some will continue to be
introverts that are never comfortable in crowds or groups. People that were
border-line hypochondriacs will continue to worry about every cough, every
fever.
And then there will
be the hoarders.
My grandparents
were adults during the Great Depression with a passel of kids to feed and
clothe, and as a result, my grandmother became a bit of a hoarder. She stuffed
the toys she crocheted with old hose and bread bags. She saved every butter
dish and every scrap of material.
I see that in
myself, only with food. I keep buying things that we normally don’t use– fruit
cups and juice drinks, canned meat, dry milk– all because I fear fresh fruit
and juice, meat and milk, will become scarce. And my freezer is full. It’s
enough food to feed the three of us for two months or more, and yet I still
keep buying. I’m running out of room.
I know it’s
because I work in a grocery store and I see each week what we aren’t getting
and the rumors of what we might not get in the next few months. But there comes
a point when I need to stop. And still, I buy.
I want to believe,
a year from now, this will be behind us and we can get back to normal. But I
have to wonder how many of us won’t be able to.
