Why Social Distancing is Ideal in My Disabled Friendships

549 words

4 minute read

Learning to bake soda bread was an adventure when we first tried our hand at it.

We were about a month into social distancing / quarantining, and were realizing that as great as grocery drop-offs could be, they were not ideal for those of us with a good bit of hypochondria on our best day - and in the middle of a pandemic at that.

But, back to bread making.

Tara and I determined quickly that so-called quick-breads were not CP-friendly, as they require speed. But when Tara's hands were covered in sticky dough, I took over and put it in the oven.

Earlier in the day, we'd received a video message from a dear young friend with CP like us. She recorded herself as she jumped on her trampoline.

Then we shared we were baking bread.

Friend: Do you like dry ingredients or wet ingredients more?

Us: Dry. We love flour. It's so soft!

Friend: Also, tell me how yummy it is. Rate it from 1-10. 1 being, "This is the worst I've ever had!" And 10 being: "This is the best I've ever had!" Because I'm not there to try it. 😞

Us: We'd give it a 9! It's pretty good!

Friend: That's why I jumped. So we can basically both...like, I can be eating it, and you can be jumping. I love you guys.

[Image: Me, Tara, and a friend show our hands, with matching bracelets. Christmas, 2017]

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The pandemic has meant that many have had to shift their usual way of doing things to rely more heavily on video chatting, messaging or using other apps to stay in touch.

For me, though, (and - I suspect - for many disabled folx) in a lot of ways the reliance on technology rather than in person interaction has been ideal.

First and foremost, we want to stay healthy.  Lots of us are high risk and we want to be alive, so for me, not interacting in person is a small price to pay.

To be honest, most of our friendships flourished online and over text even pre-pandemic.  

Our youngest friend (seen in the opening of this post) regularly sends us links to TikTok videos.  We keep up by text or Marco Polo.  We've even been known to motivate each other to do chores.  

We have our own Christmas traditions with our friend K, which have included helping decorate her tree via video chat for the last three years, watching Christmas movies and drinking hot chocolate together.  

We also know we can rely on her when we need something - she's sent us quarters on and off since March - so we can continue to do our laundry (in a building without a change machine that still requires its residents to pay to wash and dry clothes even in the middle of a pandemic.)  Thank you, K!

And we check in with our friend Alyssa nightly. We have Netflix parties and poll each other about what we'll watch.  We talk about deep stuff and momentary difficulties, like figuring out how to deal with a finding cat food in a pandemic.

So, while I don't wish pandemic life or illness on anyone, I do welcome the level of access it has normalized.

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