Day 1,592 of quarantine. I've lost all count of time. It could be 10:11 AM or it could be 2:38 PM. Who knows, who cares? All I know is that I've taken to eating my comic book collection. Paper is all the food I have left. When will this all end? 

Okay, maybe we're like a week into it, but it feels longer. As I've gotten older I've started to like spending more and more time at home. Yet somehow, this is not the same. Being forced to stay home is a very different experience. The feeling of isolation is intense. I miss people. 

While I do feel like I'm going stir crazy, I understand that this is important. That we need to do this to save lives. As an asthmatic, as well as the son of one, I see how badly this can go in just my own family. As someone with access to the news, I see how bad this is for the world. Not just the health of it's people, but also the poor. Many people are going to end up homeless if we don't start taking steps as a nation to protect us against that. We need to pause rent. Not just for apartment renters, but also for businesses. Otherwise many of them will go under, which would destroy this nation as well. 

Our leaders are failing us, it's more and more clear everyday. We are are on our own. A fact that some apartment complexes in Dallas are already reminding their residents. Don't forget rent is do. Take out loans, empty out your savings. Do whatever you can to pay rent while you have no income, because we hate you. This trying time is showing all of us who we really are. 

Don't be evil. Don't care more about money than people. Care about each other. History will remember who helped and who betrayed the greater good. This is a moment that is testing all of us, lets try to pass. Be better. 

The world is changing. Faster and faster. It takes everything we have just to hold on. Where it'll stop, no one knows. Within little more than a week, all of our lives have changed. Possibly forever. Some people go about their day to day as if nothing has happened, but those people are far and few between. 

The rest of us watch on with baited breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Where will this all end? What will the world look like when it is done? The truth is, no one knows. How can they? None of us have ever lived through something like this before. Not on this scale. Not where the government shuts everything down. Closing stores, disrupting lives. Blocking evictions, because they are coming. Make no mistake, they are coming. If not now, than when this is all over. 

As I said, nothing will ever be the same. For course their is the health risk, as an asthmatic and the son of another, I dread catching this, but that's not all I worry about. If you listen to Clean Jeans, or have read past blogs, or even know me, you know I grew up poor, and by grew up I mean I'm still poor. And by poor I mean no money. Less money than you think. 

Both of those facts are starting to weight heavily on my mind. If we make it through this, which I feel like we will. This won't kill us. It won't defeat us, but it will hurt us. Our numbers will plummet. And I can't help but wonder if the systems we live in will pick up the slack and finish the job?

That's very doom and gloom, I apologize. It's just what's been on my mind. I free lance and do Uber on the side, I've stopped doing that. My mother hasn't been able to stop going to work. More and more people I know are being forced from their jobs, while one of my best friends is being forced into crazy overtime on the front lines as a nurse. 

I've spent my whole life thinking there was time for things. Making it, starting a family. Traveling. Catching up with friends. Maybe there isn't as much time as I thought. Maybe when this is all over, we should all start to focus more on what matters. The people around us. Having new experiences. Learning, growing. Chasing our dreams instead of wasting away on someone else's. 

We don't have to wait until this passes to start taking advantage of all life has to offer. To reconnect with old friends. To build something for ourselves. When this is all said and done the world will be a very different place, we can't change that, but maybe, just maybe, we can help decide what it will look like when it's all said and done. 

Life is hard. It's full of choices that decide our fate. Forever altering our destiny. So than how do you decide what to do? How do you make a split second decision that cuts you off from every other path you could take? Just thinking about it could be enough to paralyze you. Overwhelm you to the point of indecision, leaving you trapped in time as the rest of the world passes you by. Forgets you, as if you ever existed in the first place.

Life is cruel. It asks us to make impossible choices, while being unforgiving with our missteps. The longer you live, the more evident it becomes that it is all a game you can't win. A game that moves the goal post every time you think you are closing in on victory.

​So than what is the point? Why do we play? Because what other choice do we have? To do otherwise would only lead to our own demise. A fate worse than death. Irreverence.