Sacrifice

Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or humans to a higher purpose, in particular divine beings, as an act of propitiation or worship.

These are trying times, but how much have you sacrificed?

There was that run on t-paper and the panic to see who could get the last of the pasta and beans, but from what I saw, if they didn’t have my favorite tomato, I picked another one.

Now that everyone has been told to stay home and sequester, you can sleep in late, walk around in your undies, make all sorts of bodily noises, eat junk all day and drink all night. Everyday is a holiday with nowhere to go and no one to please.

Sure, you are supposed to be working from home but you won’t do any more than you did in the office. Log on to look active and every now and then change a window or refresh the screen between Hulu movies and YouTube viral videos.

Of course you are sacrificing your sanity with all the family crammed into the same space. Like a vacation at the beach when it rains, there is no distraction except television.

This time it is different.

There is no time limit on how long this will last.

Maybe 14 days and the clouds will part? Maybe it will be by Easter when the churches can be full again? Maybe when the Lord says, “Last Call!”

Until then you have time you never realized while discussing last weekend’s game or last night’s fantasy series with office mates around the water cooler. Being alone from humanity is different.

So you are in confinement with all your relatives trying to find a way to exist. Your cupboards are full of whatever you could hoard before the frantic mobs and pizza delivery is on speed dial. How much can you eat?

In this modern age of glowing screens and remotes there is a never-ending array of adventures to view. Get lost for hours watching how tomato paste is made or how to build a deck or fly a hang glider. Continue to scroll what others have posted and you mind can glaze over until the next meal.

With additional time that has always been fleeting there is no excuse for not exercising. Gym closed? Sit-ups and push-ups can be done on the floor with no equipment or trainer. A five-mile walk in the sunshine will help your entire body and it doesn’t have to be a race. You might just notice the tulips blooming.

There are sacrificing to this challenging time.

The bars are closed. The restaurants are closed. The movie theatres are closed. The museum is closed. All the festivals are cancelled.

There is no place you can gather.

More than that, all the shops are closed.

You will have to wear the same clothing because you can’t go shopping for the latest trend. The same pots and pans and silverware you are becoming familiar with cannot be replaced except by online delivery. Dusting off cookbooks with secret notes from granny is like reading algebraic formulas.

I don’t know what you do when in solitary with your kids?

Your car is full of cheap gas but there is nowhere to go. You tummy is full of food, but the grocery is still open. Your friends and family are as close as a dialup and you can hang-up when tired of talking. What have you sacrificed?

Take a step back to those who months ago were celebrating Valentines and now find them out of work with no paycheck or insurance. The old folk can’t escape the ‘invisible villain’ but they didn’t have a chance anyway. The young ones are unaware of the magnitude of a pandemic and the pets have no idea why everyone is home.

This may only be the second week of a continuing drama.

The hospitals might be overwhelmed. The grocery might start to ration like the last big war. Families might have to start Victory Gardens to survive. The water, gas and electricity might have ‘brown outs’ or ‘black outs’.

There may be no Forth of July fireworks or Thanksgiving dinner. They may be no Christmas.

When those fourteen pair of shoes wear out and there is nowhere to buy another, which is a sacrifice much other the rest of the world endures everyday. All those celebratory tee-shirts can be worn everyday until they appear punk. With all this loose time, you can take the scraps and sew a quilt. Do you want to wear those ties or scarves or jewelry? Who will they impress?

With all this down time you can put on your exercise garments (if they still fit) and form a family workout session or you can just ask for the remote while opening another bag of chips.

The fashionable attire standard will drop to comfort clothing. Old routines such as shaving or showering will become less of a daily routine as long as there is air freshener. Manicures and pedicures will become a personal cleanliness process if you can touch your toes. Stylist perms and waves and trims will turn into mop-tops or bad hair days no matter how many combs and brushes you have.

Seeing your neighbors without makeup at the grocery will become a familiar look. When all this ends we can go back to powdering and painting our faces to appeal to each other.

Being quarantined inside four walls certain ‘odors’ will start to fill the space. Luckily one of the symptoms of this ‘invisible enemy’ is lose of smell and taste. That will be a plus when every meal contains spam or tofu.

Will this become the new cultural change? Maybe the new style will be scrubs, mask and plastic shields? Rubber gloves will get hot in the summer (remember Climate Change?) but we’ll get used to it.

If this social distancing last, will we lost our interest in community? Isolation could be our sacrifice to society?

What if there are no more family gatherings? Birthday parties? Weddings? Office meetings? Dating?

What if living within your assigned abode becomes the norm? Only communication through a thin wire must be keyboarded? When the power goes out, you are alone.

You are sacrificing commutes. You are sacrificing sports bets. You are sacrificing meeting co-workers. You are sacrificing speeding tickets. You are sacrificing being judged for wearing that outfit. You are sacrificing communal interaction.