Another day passes, another day that might very well feel wasted sitting at home. The world seems to have been up-ended over the last few weeks. In the thirty-six years that I’ve stood on this earth, there’s only one other event that compares to what I’m watching go on around me right now…and it’s strange to say it, but somehow this is more worrisome. It hasn’t been long since the shutdowns started, it will be some time before things start to return to normal. Things that you took for granted, stupid things like going out to get a pizza or to maybe catch a movie, are now genuinely risky, and as many say, not just for yourself but for others.

Part of me wants to explain how I’ve dealt with not being able to do as I please courtesy of the time I spent in the military, but that’s not a worthy argument. Part of me wants to eye-roll the whole thing and say it isn’t a big deal, but even if you discount the overall percentages of affected versus deaths, it’s still someone’s loved one that was taken out by a virus. I’m calloused, but not cold enough to look at someone who just lost a loved one and inform them that a small percentage had to go. That’s casting off your humanity.

Do I know what to do or say to make any of this better for anyone? I wish I did, I genuinely do. I don’t. I’m spending each day doing what I can do, which has kept me at home. I work from home. My projects are at home. My house needs to be fixed, so I need to spend time at home. My wife, her family, my friends…all at home. We’ve cooked. We’ve cleaned. We’ve caught up on all of the little things that we’ve put off over the years because we’ve been too busy to deal with it before.

I’m not telling you to lock yourselves in the house, hidden inside of Fort Charmin, with your bottles of hand sanitizer at the ready. I’m not saying that you need to go grocery shopping in a HAZMAT suit, or that you just need to lie in bed, drinking away the month either. Life has risk from the moment you are born until the moment you pass. Understanding risk and dealing with it properly is the difference between a positive outcome and a negative one.

Take care of yourselves.