The Chronicles of 2020: April Flowers

hy·po·chon·dri·a·sis

/ˌhīpōkənˈdrīəsis/

noun

abnormal anxiety about one’s health, especially with an unwarranted fear that one has a serious disease.

April is when I started to crack. At the very beginning of the month, I convinced myself for a variety of reasons that I had Corona. I spent a day or two on the couch wrapped in a blanket, checking my temperature far too frequently. I even sent Andrew out to Trader Joe’s instead of heading out on my weekly run — which says a lot.

There’s a high chance it was allergies.

Hypochondriasis aside, April was in my head and I was letting small, random things get to me. National Burrito Day fell on April 2nd, and I decided to treat myself to the free delivery and queso that Chipotle was offering. Yet it seemed that thousands of people decided to do the same; the app crashed on me several times in a row, and I threw my phone into the couch and started crying, as any rational adult would.

We decided around that time that it would be best for both of our mental health to get outside more, and so we reverted back to each of our favorite sports. One night we passed the volleyball back and forth in the backyard, another day we chose to dig up our old softball/baseball mitts and play catch.

The neighbors’ windows narrowly avoided disaster.

Easter was full of Zoom calls, and we sat on the floor of our Living Room while watching church in our sweatpants, eating donuts.

I started noticing signs going up around Annapolis — those big road signs that are normally used to tell you when there will be construction, or a parade. Instead the signs instructed that we wash our hands, and stay at home. Which we did, outside of occasional runs, dog walks, and errands.

Later in the month, I ventured out to donate blood, after seeing public cries that there was a shortage. It was something I hadn’t done since college, but didn’t have much of an excuse not to. So I strapped on my mask and headed down the street to our local Rec Center.

Coincidentally, the Mayor walked in behind me, his Australian accent catching my ear. We ended up sitting across from each other as our bags filled with blood, and he suggested that the volunteers take a social distancing picture for his Facebook page.

I smiled from behind my mask, and laughed at myself at how ridiculous it was to smile behind a mask. It will probably go down as one of the weirder pictures I’ve ever taken.

April 14th was the day of mourning that we had earmarked on our calendars; the day we had originally booked flights to travel to Vietnam. So in dramatic fashion, the four of us (sister, brother-in-law, husband, and I) ordered Vietnamese Pho, and ate it on a Zoom call for dinner.

We slurped our broth and laughed over the fact that, slightly over a month ago, we thought we were going to fly to Asia for ten days.