The worst advice in the world (in my opinion. YMMV) has got to be, “Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s all small stuff.” Well, no it bloody isn’t. Some of the “stuff” is so huge, it hardly fits on this planet.

Is everyone I love healthy? That’s huge, and I’ll sweat it all I like, you meaningless, bad-advice-giving cliché.

I’ve been tested several times because Stu is at risk and is a high-risk worker. There have been four virus scares in my family the past few months, and thankfully, all were negative. I had mine two weeks ago.

I was watching a friend launch her book in South Africa (one of the perks of this pandemic is that I can now attend events I likely never could in real life), and about halfway through, my throat started to get sore. I had swollen glands and a bad tickle, and no other symptoms.

And I was terrified. Not of having the virus necessarily, but of unknowingly passing it on to Stu if I did have it. I knew the chances were slim. I’d been nowhere but the Co-op complex on the east side of town, the post office, and the occasional socially-distant outdoor market. I had visited my mom, but we’re not a bubble, and we are vigilant in her house. [I insisted we both test negative before I visited.]

I booked a test for the next day, called Stu, changed the sheets, moved downstairs, and sanitized everything I’d touched in the house. We had discussed this in great detail months ago. Should one of us become ill, the ill one would move downstairs to the guest room, and the well one would stay upstairs and do the cooking/food procurement.

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We practically live in this gazebo six months of the year. It’s open on two sides, and the wind does get chilly. But it’s our little slice of paradise.

We had already decided to try to enclose it so we could be outside as long as possible this fall, and maybe make the dread of this coming isolated winter a little less awful. He went to Crappy Tire, bought some tarps and a space heater, and within an hour, I had a blanket fort. We were both masked as we set it up.

if you’ve not had to do this, between the first sign of symptoms and the results coming back to me, I was legally bound to the property. I was allowed to be in my own yard, but no leaving my plot of land. The nurse who tested me had said that results were taking five or six days, so I prepared to be downstairs that long.

And then I bawled my eyes out in my blanket fort. We had planned a trip to Jasper for our anniversary and the place we were renting from were incredibly good to us: doing everything they could to hold the space until the last minute before our booking was to begin, and even calling me to check in as to whether I had my results yet. We were to leave in four days, and I thought we’d have to call it off.

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The good side of these few shitty days was that the weather was gorgeous, and I could work outside. I detached one of the tarps, set up the space heater, and edited. The stress and time and energy to move downstairs and take cleaning precautions had seriously set me back in terms of a tricky editing deadline. Sitting outside with one wall of the fort open so I could look at my garden and my flowers, I worked away. Thank gawd for laptops.

The manuscript I was working on was written by a person with a grave illness. Their hope is to hold the printed book while they’re still here to hold it. I did both the substantive and the copy edit on the book for them, and it will be self-published in order to have physical copies as soon as possible.

It struck me full-force when I was deeply into the copy edit that I could have Covid-19. I knew that I probably didn’t, but I was able to set the fear aside while I worked on this person’s book. This person who is in far more dire circumstances than I am.

“Beach!” I said out loud. “Get yer head out of yer ass!” I was able to finish the work in those few days while we all waited for my results. I wasn’t hugging Stu, and we were staying six feet apart and wearing masks when we were outside together. All the stuff we prepared for.

What I couldn’t prepare for was the fear. And what helped me push that aside was the work. There have been times when I’ve questioned whether what I do makes any difference in the world: especially this new world. From this point forward, I will remember that it does. The work does matter. The book I finished up while waiting for my results will make a difference in the world. I’ll hold on to that.

A couple of days later, I got what will likely be the best text I have ever—or will ever—receive:

I hugged Stu as though I’d never let him go and we were able to go on our anniversary trip.

I’ll never lose sight of the fact that the work can save us. It’s what we’re meant to do. It’s what we know in our hearts will mean something to someone. Maybe many someones. Maybe someone whose last wish is to hold their book and you’re the one helping to make that happen.

Our work matters. If you have been feeling like there’s no reason to edit your own work, there is. Someone needs it. You just might not know who that is yet.

A Virus Scare, Perspective, and How the Work Can Rescue Us