Week 11: Social Anxiety

June 4, 2020

I just fled a graduation party.

My smart, articulate, lovely niece graduated high school today, and my father and his wife wanted to throw her a celebration. She deserves it. First of all, because she’s worked hard. Second, because she didn’t get a prom or a senior ditch day or a walk down the graduation aisle.

So they set up TV screens in their backyard and placed tables at strategic distances, and about 20 of us sat down to watch the virtual ceremony: my two nieces, my brother and his wife; my dad and his wife; my mom and her boyfriend; my sister-in-law’s parents and brother; three of my niece’s friends; and me and my three kids (my husband was still at work, because it’s a Thursday and the ceremony was at 5 p.m.)

It’s a lot of people, even in a good-sized backyard. Still, I think I could have managed it.

But none of the guests wore masks, and people from different households sat in chairs with far less than six feet between them.

Masked waiters served passed hors d’eouvres, which you had to pluck from the plate with your fingers. Later, after the ceremony, the same waiters would serve dinner, made by (masked) chefs in the kitchen. Ingress and egress was through the house. Teenagers were hugging.

Even still, I might have been able to make it through. I saw no signs of the virus. The evening was lovely, the hostess had been meticulous in her planning and presentation, and the guest of honor is a young lady I dearly love.

But my mom’s boyfriend, Richard, has been ill with cancer for a few months now, and when I left, he was seated right in the middle of it all, mask dangling from his chair, next to my mother, who had also set her mask aside. I tried to tell myself that they are grown ups, and responsible for themselves. I know the risks are low — all of us outdoors, a relatively small crowd of apparently robustly healthy people.

Still. Every time I looked at my mom and her boyfriend, I thought I would sob. I felt horrible about that, because they looked so happy. They have been cooped up since his January diagnosis to a degree that even I, as much as I shelter in place, cannot begin to comprehend. I can see the argument that life is not worth living if you have to spend it caged inside in the same home, day after day.

But that didn’t make it any easier for me to watch them. From the moment he got diagnosed, five months ago now, all I could think was that he must survive this. Richard is one of the best things that ever happened to my mother, and we all love him very much, in no small part because of how good he is to her. I can’t lose him, I thought. I can’t lose him. The word “coronavirus” started to echo in my head. I felt my anxiety start to come at me, like snow rolling down a hill, gathering snow as it goes, threatening to become an avalanche. And I realized there was certainly someone who was going to get sick out of this, and it was me, from stress.

I made an excuse to my dad about a queasy stomach, which wasn’t too far from the truth, and scurried out of there. Now I’m home, writing this blog. The kids will text me when it’s wrapping up, and I will get in the car and drive 15 minutes to get them.

I am not going to argue that I was rational, or that I made a rational choice. I’m emotional and anxious in the best of times. Of course, I’m even more so these days. We are all more so these days.

Here’s what I learned: the world is still out there, and one by one, people are rejoining it. I am, too, to a small degree. I also went to the dentist today, and to Trader Joe’s. But I’m not ready for a party.

I wish I were. I really, really wish I were.