Coronavirus Chronicles- A Year Later

Wendy Del Monte
3 min readMar 16, 2021

A year ago I wrote these words about the Coronavirus. I can’t believe how spot on I was. There are a lot of things I’ve learned in the past year, about myself and the world. Let’s revisit what Day 1 looked like…

It’s amazing to me that something as tiny as this little virus can bring the entire world to a stop. I mean, I knew it could, I had read enough end of the world books to know most of the ways the world could end, but I always thought that those books I read were really just fiction.

I was wrong.

Yesterday was the official “Day 1” of Coronavirus Quarantine, although we aren’t really quarantined. We’re self-quarantining, I guess. Mostly because my husband, my daughter, and myself all fall under the “high-risk category”. Yes, we’re the “lucky” 20 percent that could die if infected, so we decided to just stay home and take care of ourselves.

As a quasi- prepper, I thought I was prepared. I wasn’t. I had my 3 weeks’ worth of food in the house, so I didn’t need any last-minute rushes for canned foods or toilet paper, but I did get more pet food and junk food. I had to add in more detergent, more salt, and of course, a few bottles of wine. Chocolate. I still was unprepared, though. What I wasn’t ready for was the fear.

This is some scary shit. Knowing that this is coming, (has come?) and there is nothing I can do about it levels me. David said that it feels like we are always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and that’s it exactly. I thought I was prepared but I wasn’t prepared to feel so powerless and out of control. I wasn’t ready to think about how this would change me mentally. I’m struggling with my mental health, fighting depression in particular. So is my daughter. Many people are. The thing I have to remember and reassure her was that it's ok to not be ok. It’s ok to feel the feels. I’ve gone into protect mode. Focusing on the things that I can do to help keep myself and all of us, really, mentally well.

I went into MamBear Mode and made sure my house was as ready as it could be. I made up a vitamin regimen that I think would help. I scrubbed the house. I made a “sanitation station” in my garage where if you’ve had to be “outside” then you strip down and disinfect before you come into the clean zone. You come in and go straight into the shower. Is it overkill? Maybe, but it keeps me sane. I got a case of speghettios for my son. I made sure I had comfort foods for Dave and Ally. I got plenty of coffee to protect them all from me without it.

I stopped watching the news. Seriously, they are all about sensationalism and make bigger and more outlandish claims to get views. They are a huge part of the problem. I’ve gotten to just watching the same two Youtube channels I’ve watched since the beginning. Dr. John Cambell, and Peak Prosperity. Both of them give me the facts I need, without trying to scare me. The rest of the time I follow a few of my favorite Facebook pages, and that’s it. I’ve given up on a lot of social media. There are still many people saying” Stop panicking! It’s just freaking flu!” and the other side, screaming about the End of the World. They’re both wrong.

The world isn’t ending, but the world that we knew is. It truly is. It feels much like 9/11 when we knew that everything had changed, and we didn’t know what was going to happen next. Once we come out on the other side of this, things are going to be different. We need to prepare for that as much as we prepare for Covid-19.

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Wendy Del Monte

I fight bullying, help end the stigma of mental illness, and prep for the Zombie Apocalypse! Anti-bullying advocate for both kids AND Parents.