Andrea

Andrea

Bite me, Anxiety

The last 24 hours have been, shall we say, a bit roller coastery and honest to God, this damn corona thing has taken my relationship with anxiety, which had up until now been more like an occasional booty call kind of thing, and morphed it into some weird, fatal attraction WHO BOILED THE RABBIT kind of thing.
 
Yesterday, I learned that Justice Johnny Lee Baynes died of COVID-19 related pneumonia. He was a judge in Brooklyn, New York with whom my law firm, particularly my department, was very familiar. I did not know him personally, but I knew of him and his death is, as of today at least, the only COVID-19 related death with which I have any connection, albeit distant.
 
Minutes after learning of his death, I was panic calling Zoe and sputtering on about stripping clothes off by the front door and taking showers in Clorox and by God, I’m making everyone in my house wear hazmat suits made out of throw rugs and gorilla glue and blah blah blah.
 
By the way, I typically like to keep my crazy to myself and the only reason Zoe was the lucky recipient of my phone call was that she and Kyle sold their house in February and this virus shit prevents them from even looking at another house to buy so she, Kyle, my little EllaBellaBean and their two dogs are moving into my tiny house in two weeks. I KNOW, RIGHT?
 
Anyway, I eventually reigned it in, paused and took a breath.
 
Today, my finance guy, Don, called me. That’s not a big deal in and of itself except … Don had COVID-19. I learned this when the Dow plunged into the toilet wearing my 401K as a diaper and I called Don’s office to cry about it only to be told he wasn’t there because he had the virus and his prognosis was unknown and then I hung up and cried for an entirely different reason.
 
And today he called me back. Completely recovered and home with his wife who, more good news, never became symptomatic herself. Don is one of the statistics you don’t often hear about in the media coverage of this pandemic – one of survival. We only ever hear about who dies, not about who lives.
 
Justice Baynes is gone, my retirement still looks like sewage, but Don is alive.
 
I’ll take the wins wherever I can find them.

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