Grounded – Being home during the COVID-19 Outbreak

As I sit here eating peanut butter from a spoon, I am thinking about all the people who were enjoying their holidays, dream vacations, who are now trying to get home and can’t.  I reflect on a CBC story of some Canadians who were trying to find flights home from Morocco and couldn’t. The airlines were, and still are either grounded, or they can’t find connecting fights to get them to Canada. 

I usually never feel ready to come home after a week away.  About day 12 I get a little homesick, thinking about my family, my pets and my friends.  I could not imagine the feelings that some of these travellers are experiencing, when they are sitting in hotel rooms, trying to get home, and are feeling stuck.  We are “stuck” at home, with the comforts of home.  People are or were sitting in a foreign country, in a hotel room, without a spoon of peanut butter hanging out of their mouths.  Fortunately, the group in the interview did have a local guide (who I assume they are paying) staying with them to help them translate and get some essential items that they need.

Makes me wonder what I would do.  Would I try to find a way home?  Would I keep my spirits up by laying on a local beach (providing there was not a law enforced quarantine in effect), would I be enjoying the sites or would I be completely stressed, panicked maybe, trying to figure out my next move, like an action movie.  How scared would I be?  What thoughts would be running through my head?

The answer depends strictly on the reasoning.  I would like to believe that I would live in the moment and enjoy my expanded stay.  Since COVID 19 is the reason, public spaces are closed, people are sick and dying.  I am confident that I would be panicking, to what degree I don’t know.  I would be trying day and night to get home.   My heart breaks for those who are scared.  I hope they find strength and comfort knowing that we are thinking of them, that the government is trying to help them return home, and that their loved ones are waiting for them, in the comforts of home quarantine.

There were plans that have been cancelled for my family and for millions of other families. I am a travel advisor as well and the industry is currently devastated. Airlines are laying off, boarders to countries are closed and people are upset. We have a big trip planned for the fall, and I hope that we are able to still go. I love to travel so much and it makes me so sad to see that many places in the world are suffering and that it will take us longer to have new experiences.

Since I am grounded at home, I am going to create a series of stories of this time of my life, my time feeling not only grounded but the changes in my day to day, the changes in my community and the good things that are also happening around me.  I know my focus on this page is travel, but right now a new page in the world’s history books, and I don’t want to ignore that.  I want to be a part of it, I want to share my page.