By Jon Show. As we progressed through this spring I began numbering these weekly columns after I submitted them – Coronavirus Newsletter 1, 2, 3 and so on.
Somewhere around week seven I promised if we reached week ten that was I going to submit a column with a single profane word copy and pasted 800 times.
Well, here we are. Coronavirus Newsletter 10. Don’t worry – I didn’t keep my promise. This is a family publication, after all.
As we enter Phase II, today marks the real beginning of North Carolina’s reopening and the end of the weekly Coronavirus Newsletter columns. Has it really been ten weeks? It really only feels like – I don’t know – 80 to 90 weeks? 80 to 90 years?
It feels so long that I swear both of my kids have grown an inch. It feels so long that the dog missed two haircuts and had to be shaved last week. 
Speaking of haircuts, it’s been so long that Future Man is actually begging for a haircut. It only took a 100-year pandemic.
It’s been so long that the turquoise dye I used on the Blonde Bomber’s hair a few weeks ago has faded away.
The Mother of Dragons’ hair has … never mind. I want to sleep in the marital bed tonight.
Let’s just say it’s been a long time.
As I look ahead to the next few months it’s easier than I thought it would be to feel comfortable with the uncertainty. At a minimum I think it’s easier to deal with this version of uncertainty rather than the uncertainly that swept over us in March.
People who work in mergers and acquisitions have a phrase called Pencils Down, which means stop working on a deal because it’s over. That’s it. Go home.
In March, when the NBA closed up, a co-worker and I spent the ensuing days texting back and forth applying mergers and acquisitions lingo to new shut downs in our industry.
“NHL. Pencils Down.” “MLS. Pencils Down.” “Masters. Pencils Down.” It was a blood bath that finally ended with Pencils Down on one of our own events and two more rescheduled for the fall.
With little work to do for a couple weeks I packed up our family and went to the mountains to try to cope with the fact that the business I spent ten years building might implode because of a dead bat in a city 7,763 miles away.
In the coming weeks there were jobs that never materialized. Events that went away. This weekend I should have flown to Philadelphia to work a tournament that would have been my third in six weeks – which would have marked 30 of the last 42 days on the road.
Instead I’ve been in my house every day for the last 68 days trying to work while pulling quadruple duty as a teacher, lunch lady and vice principal.
I’m tired of being a teacher and lunch lady and vice principal. Certainly there are risks to continue opening things back but we have to open them back up at some point.
So today, for the first time in a long time, just feels like the beginning of something.
Not like the beginning-beginning. It feels like the end of a disaster movies where a guy emerges from a bunker at sunrise and the camera pans over the landscape and he realizes the world hasn’t ended, but it’s different and things are going to be ok.
The NBA is back at practice and NASCAR is racing and everyone is trying to figure out how to get back. I’ll take that over sitting in the dark and hoping for good news from a guy named Tony.
I look to 5 o’clock today with more excitement than hesitation. Certainly things aren’t going back to normal any time soon, but I’m ready to go, with some obvious adjustments.
I’m ready to watch my kids play sports, even if it’s just individual drills in their own six foot box.
I’m ready for school to end and summer camp to start so my kids have someone to play with again, even if their camps are in two different places because they can’t have more than 25 kids per location.
I’m ready to have a drink and an appetizer in whichever establishment will have me and I’m ready to take my kids to a movie on a rainy day, even if I have to wash my hands and have my temperature taken upon entering.
And, yes, I’m going to do it all while social distancing and wearing a mask if the situation warrants one.
I’m ready to emerge from the bunker at sunrise and realize the world hasn’t ended, but it’s different and things are going to be ok.
Pencils Up. Let’s go.
Jon Show lives in Robbins Park with his wife, who he calls “The Mother of Dragons.” Their 10-year-old son is “Future Man” and their 7-year-old daughter is “The Blonde Bomber.” Their dog is actually named Lightning.
