Many of you were surprised by what Maria wrote about Katherine Schwarzenegger last week in Celebrity Social Media. I’ve seen a lot of family sh-t, on both sides. It’s amazing the different sides of our personalities that get triggered over family drama – there is no pain and bitterness bigger than family pain and bitterness. In a time of crisis though, does that change? As Covid-19 forces people to stay apart, does that only inspire them to want to come together?
And on the flipside of that, what will coronavirus do to healthy relationships?
I know someone who came home from what was supposed to be a holiday in Asia a few weeks ago with her partner and self-isolated and then, just as the self-isolation period ended came the announcements last week that workplaces – at least here in Toronto – were shutting down, which means that she and her partner will now have been together, non-stop, day after day, for six weeks and counting. No separation at all. It’s a LOT. I imagine, as time goes on, it might be similar for other couples who are now at home with each other, from morning to night, practising social distancing.
I mean, obviously, this is not the main concern. The main concern is that people stay healthy, protect themselves and others, and we all work in community (by not being in community) to flatten the curve and end the pandemic. This is the priority, of course it is. That said, we’ve already been talking about consequences. There will be an economic consequence. There will be social consequences. Duana wrote on our group chat today that she wonders if what we’re experiencing right now will lead to a “seismic anthropological shift”, particularly in our relationships, in the way we move around the world, and around each other. And in the immediate, there are many couples right now who are with each other all day every day – an atypical amount of time spent together, right up in each others’ faces, some of them in small spaces, with no other outlets of contact. I just texted my friends that I’m not sure my marriage will make it past six months of this. There are no sports for him to watch and he keeps trying to talk to me. And then he’s working on his sh-t, I’m bothering him with whatever it is that I do that bothers him. Love in the Time of Coronavirus will be tested.
Here are Katherine Schwarzenegger and Chris Pratt out for a walk yesterday.
