Lori Falce: Following covid-19 advice

Working from home is one of those things that sounds better in theory than in practice.

What’s not to like, right? You can come to the 8:30 a.m. meeting in your pajamas. You can lie on your couch while you answer emails. You can have a real lunch instead of eating ramen in a styrofoam cup at your desk.

Those are all real things that happened this week for me. And they were refreshing.

But there is also the eye-twitching stress of trying to keep your kid from cackling like a demented witch while you are on a conference call. The fact that your office desk is more comfortable than you thought for balancing a computer and another screen and a halo of sticky notes and a tower of yellow legal tablets. The simple joy of finishing and walking away, which doesn’t happen when you aren’t leaving.

So while I am glad to have the ability to work from home while the whole world tries to keep the coronavirus at a six-foot-distance, I will be equally delighted to get back to my office with its giant dry-erase board and chaotic hodgepodge of old papers, page proofs and political cartoons.

And I know that will happen.

I am not afraid of what is happening as the world responds to the threat of coronavirus. I know the odds, and the odds are in my favor.

A lot of people will get sick, but not everyone. A lot of people will require serious treatment, but not everyone. A lot of people will spend time in intensive care units or on ventilators. Too many people will die. But not everyone.

I intend to be in the “not everyone” group. I want my kid to be there, too.

That’s why I’m paying attention to the recommendations from the government and the assessment of the scientists.

I will not party on a beach in a crush of others. I won’t meet the girls for a night out. My son isn’t camping with his scout friends.

I won’t do things that put myself in danger or create a chain of small broken rules that leads to my exposure — or worse — the exposure of my mother, who sits in the bullseye of concentric circles of escalating risk groups.

And you may think I’m overreacting. You wouldn’t be alone. Maybe I am.

But I would rather miss my niece’s 5th birthday party than bring a confetti of invisible viruses from Westmoreland County, which has its first covid-19 patients, to Clearfield County, which doesn’t. It isn’t that I don’t love her enough to take the chance. I love her too much to roll the dice.

It will probably be just the first of many misses in coming weeks. Easter seems like it might be the first holiday I don’t spend with my family in more than 20 years. I have looked forward to seeing my whip-smart nephew graduate for 18 years, but that seems like it might not happen. His sister’s dance recital probably won’t either.

But a few special events now could mean the difference between all of us being there for a 6th birthday party or a college graduation or Christmas. A lot of Christmases.

I am not afraid. I am careful. I listen to a lot of information, and I am applying what I hear.

Because I really want to get back to my office as soon as I can.