This is all surreal.

That’s about as profound as I can get this week as situations and the status of life as we know it continues to change hour by hour.

In complete truth late last week I saw this space leading with a sentence and a follow up about karma. I did after all pen an opinion last week about the corona madness and how I was simply baffled by it all.

While I am still baffled, I’m equally grateful for educated friends who have shared facts with me, which I some how missed in mainstream media.

Now granted nothing captures an audience more than a long line around Costco, empty shelves in markets or the image of people walking through the streets in face masks.

Through an educated friend/wife of a doctor I learned about the extra precautions and the ‘why’ for the extreme nature being enforced. I learned about proactive preventatives to prohibit a quick spread like Italy. My mind can wrap around this explanation.

I still don’t understand the hoarding of toilet paper and the like but I’m adapting to “Corona Life.”

Please don’t misunderstand; I am not trying to be funny. The past five days of my life I’ve learned that anything and everything I know, may alter drastically at any given moment. We are currently living in an hour to hour world.

Planning a big birthday party for the coming weekend? Think again. Corona Life advises we restrict gatherings to ten or less (that was as of Monday at 2 p.m.). By press time this too may be changed.

We’re learning to become Amish, that’s what we realized this past weekend and I can’t completely say I take issue with it. Sunday night as we gathered as a family and with extended family in our presence I recognized how lucky we were. We spent the weekend confined to our home front, baking bread, playing games and working together on household chores. Blessed.

We checked in with loved ones, made a grocery trip (or two) – where did all the food go? And we made a stop at a local bar to support a longtime staple before he’s forced to close.

As mommies, we placed a preliminary plan in place as we look to the end of the week and our new roles as “home school” moms. Welcome to Corona Life.

It looks very little like the life we lived one year ago, yet here we still are and we’re grateful for that as well.

There’s a lot which concerns me, economically speaking as we watch people spend money they likely don’t have, businesses forced to close and schools shut down. Living history at this degree is really something else.

Over the weekend, as my partner and I discussed what we were living through with our children and family we recalled our ancestors before us and their lives living through war times and very limited means. The gratitude they lived with for the simplest of things, we’re now doing the same.

As I start to “land the plane” on this piece, so to speak, I can’t help but want to urge everyone to continue to support one another. To continue to be kind, loving and selfless within reason.

Earlier this week, I dropped a grudge I had with another and extended a simple “Good morning” as I passed a person. No reply, not even eye contact and that’s okay.

What I realized as I continued on with my business, my day, is we can’t be responsible for another’s heavy heart. Anger and hate have a great way of eating a person up inside.

So as we go through the days of Corona Life, be a good neighbor, spouse, friend, child. Look out for your parents, your loved ones and your friends. Check-in on those who need it, help a senior with some shopping or take a meal to someone you know is alone.

Corona Life just may be the reset this world has needed. As we have stepped away from real life connection and relied on technology, maybe now is the time to use this technology to make a real impact on each other.

Sure we are being encouraged to isolate and “social distance” – today. But we can still dial a phone, shoot a text or drop an e-mail to check-in and then … Simply do the right thing.

I’m not sure what next week will look like. Heck I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the past 72 hours. Yet all that being said, thank you God for not just the life I’ve been given, but the people I’ve been given to be “stuck” with. It is indeed a wonderful life.

Teresa Hammond is a staff reporter for The Oakdale Leader, The Riverbank News and The Escalon Times. She may be reached at thammond@oakdaleleader.com or by calling 847-3021.