With the world upside down and our regular routines flying out the window, it's really easy to slip into old habits. Particularly when things go sideways. A friend and colleague for over a decade suddenly decides to unfriend, and even block, you over a disagreement on Facebook. A contractor says he'll be a week (or two... or three...) late in starting a project that you've been looking forward to for months. On a shopping expedition (and they are now "expeditions) to Superstore, where face masks are "mandatory", you see five naked-faced people within the first two minutes. People who aren't even trying to maintain social distancing either. An unexpected expense pops up on the radar. The phone company is overcharging your monthly bill. And... to top it all off... Halloweem AND Remembrance Day AND Christmas AND New Years (and any other holiday in the next few months) are likely to be very limp affairs. And let's not even mention the election south of the border. I could go on, but you get the idea.
It's just one thing after another... a never-ending supply of curve balls coming out of left field and... it's completely natural to crave just that little bit of food comfort. Chips. Chocolate. Ice Cream. Pick your poison. Just a little bit of normalcy in a world that seems to be slowly going off the rails. So nice to close the drapes, turn on the TV, find a movie and snuggle in for some good old snack time. For a few brief hours we are cocooned away from the world. But then... the world crashes right back in. The same things that were there yesterday... are there today... and tomorrow... and the next day. On top of that... you've now added a bit of weight gain to the mix. And the cycle begins again.
Cause, let's face it... there's always something. Some curve ball. Some monkey wrench. Something that just didn't go right. Your plans for the day are blown apart by a sick child or a vehicle that won't start or an appliance that goes on the fritz. Or maybe it's just the never-ending tedium of trying to work from home surrounded by all of the home distractions. A novelty for the first week and now a hard, long uphill slog. Maybe it's the subtle pressure of girding your loins to go out on a shopping expedition: Face masks - check. Lysol wipes - check. Hand sanitizer - check. Shopping list - check. And then the continual dodging around naked-faced people who seem oblivious to the reality of the world. I guess we all deal with stress in different ways and denial is not just a river in Egypt but one way that people handle the relentless pressure of a pandemic.
And all of this seems quite mild compared to other historical events: bombings, famine, earthquakes, hurricanes, war. A pandemic should seem like a minor blip in the grand scheme of world disasters and yet... this blip is affecting the entire world. Every single person on earth, except maybe Kim Kardashian (and her little birthday party flit to a private island so they could all feel "normal"), is affected by this virus. It is a relentless, every-present stressor - just enough to trigger our instinctive fight/flight/freeze response. Trigger our adrenal glands and get some cortisol flowing through the system. It triggers our "danger, danger" instincts and... it makes sense that some part of us thinks... danger - better stock up on some energy (eat) while we can because we might need to fight (be big and strong), flight (run like hell) or... if those two fail... freeze (and who knows when we'll be able to eat anything).
And so... we eat... we bake... we shop... we stockpile dried legumes and canned tomatoes. Still not sure what all the TP hoarding is about except... if you're gonna go whole hog on the eating front, it stands to reason that what goes in must come out too...
The munchies seem to come in waves too. One week I'll be good and able to resist the siren call of salt, sugar, fat... but the next week is more of a struggle. Although, now, it seems like it's almost a daily thing. Good for a day or so and then ready to collapse and embrace chocolate like life-preserver. And maybe that's just the way it is right now. This virus has really fogged the future. We don't know what next month is going to look like, let alone 2021. It's really a matter of focusing on the here and now... or as Ram Dass liked to say - Be Here Now. Right here... right now. And take each moment as it comes, one small step at a time.
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