Shit is real.

You’ll notice I did not say it *just got* real. Because it just is, indeed, entirely real.

We are in the midst of a pandemic, the likes of which our government apparently knew might happen, but did nothing about.

Huh, imagine that.

Anyhoo, here I am, Quarantine Day # 8, a single mom with a 6-year-old (not to mention the far-harder-to-convince-to-stay-inside 17-year-old and 20-year old).home schooling

And yet, here’s our reality: I haven’t allowed my family to be in public since Friday of last week.

Why, you might appropriately ask? To #flattenthefuckingcurve.

Yet I am confused. Why do I pass by retail stores, and people are still there?

Why do I pass by restaurants, and people are still dining inside?

Why are people still complaining about these simple life-preserving methods of keeping a safe social distance in order to curb the spread of this virus?

I just don’t get it.

We know what’s going to happen. We only need look to China or Italy, and there it is: the crystal-fucking-clear answer.

It’s almost like we’ve read the CliffsNotes version and brazenly taken the SAT, assuming we actually knew the actual definition of “irony,” even though we think it’s synonymous with something Alanis Morrissette thinks it is actually about.

(Spoiler alert: It is NOT “♬ …like raiiiiiiiiiin, on your wedding day…♬”)

What irony is: Getting fucking COVID-19 from the germs of the warehouse handlers who touched the package of the disinfecting wipes you ordered through Amazon when you were fucking quarantined inside your home because no one else had fucking sanitizing wipes.

Now THAT, my friends, is irony.

There’s only one answer to this shitstorm of dumbfuckery:

It’s 6 feet, peeps.

Stay away from those around you by a minimum of 6 fucking feet.

My 20-year-old and my 6-year-old having a snowball fight on a walk around our neighborhood as we #shelterinplace. And yes, yesterday was the first day of spring. Don’t tell Mama Nature.

Identify the people in your tight familial circle, and let no one else apart from those people inside that precious little circle to be inside your circle at a distance of less than 6 feet.

That’s it. Simple as that. #SocialFuckingDistancing, explained.

I’m so tired of all of this.

I’m tired of people lamenting their loss of freedom, their loss of autonomy, their loss of toilet paper.

Shit is real. And for real shit, we need real solutions — the likes of which no Costco-sized palette of toilet paper will resolve.

We are in a brave(ish) new world.

And it’s time to consider the reality that we’re going to be dealing with this for about 2 months, and then shit will likely go back to normal.

And yet…

We are forever changed. Let us never forget the lessons. Let us not adapt to our new normal, without always considering this very present new new-normal.

Because while things will go back to “normal,” they will never be normal again.

You do know this will happen again, right?

So how will we be ready next time?

Shit is real. And we have to be ready.

It’s just 6 feet, people.

We can do that.

And alas, we must consider how to do that very simple thing: again and again and fucking again.