My mother thinks she has the coronavirus. She’s out of breath, she says, and can’t seem to stop coughing. I remind her that she has asthma and terrible allergies during the spring, but this is not deemed an acceptable response. She sleeps on the couch downstairs for the next three nights. I am not allowed to hug her.

Having dealt with chronic anxiety and an intense germaphobia accompanied by obsessive compulsive disorder for the majority of my life, one would think this pandemic to be my worst nightmare. And in some ways it is. However, I have never felt more seen or understood than I do when my grandparents come to drop off a Passover Seder donning rubber gloves and face masks, or when my friend in Las Vegas asks me not to send her mail because I may have touched something that had been previously touched by an infected individual and if I now run my tongue along the seal of the envelope, she too may become infected. I’ve always described my relationship with germs as seeing paint trail from object to object, leaving its mark on everything and everyone it comes in contact with. No one seemed to get that analogy until now. I am comforted by the revelation that I am no longer alone in my view of the world.

Perhaps it is because of this that I appear overly calm in the face of mass panic. This mindset is not new to me. I have spent years arming myself with coping mechanisms and reality checks and somehow the one aspect of myself I am unable to control is keeping my head above water for once. My mother no longer sleeps alone on our living room sofa. My brother is beginning to spend his days beside the open windows of his bedroom. I am allowed a trip to the grocery store to pick up the necessities, and as I pass through a sea of medical masks and disinfectant sprays, I am able to see the irony of it all.