Deja vu: a feeling of already experiencing the present situation
Indeed we have.
On this day last year, we were in the same hotel. Same decor, same menu, same view… We were 6 floors lower and 9 doors closer to the elevator, but that’s not enough to keep me from the “been here, done that, would prefer to not do this again” feeling.
We are now experiencing Pandemiquarancation vol. 12.
12!!!
When I started using that word in 2020 to describe how we spent our school break, I thought we might end up with a trilogy. I never imagined we’d have more volumes than the Star Wars franchise. Yet, here we are.
This is our third hotel quarantine. At the end of this week, in total, we will have spent 6 weeks of our lives locked in a room together. When the pandemic started, I made cute posters with different activities we could do throughout each day of our pandemiquarancation. I had energy and creativity and motivation. I tried to keep my kids from having too much screen time. Now, it’s every person for themselves.
Binge 4 seasons of your favorite Netflix series in a day? Sure.
Ice cream for lunch? OK.
Stare into the abyss for hours? Yeah, I’ve done that.
Anything that keeps us from devolving into a Lord of the Flies situation, I consider a successful outcome.
At least this quarantine is shorter than the others. We are sentenced to just 7 days this time. Even better, since we arrived in Hong Kong at 10:30PM and Day 1, we only have 6 days locked in the room. We can do this!
Hopefully, this will be our last Pandemiquarancation. Hong Kong is looking into reducing or getting rid of the hotel quarantine requirements for inbound travelers. What a relief that would be.
Then again, I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere before.
The New Griswolds 