So...2020. It's been a bit of a roller coaster ride hasn't it? I never regret the century and millennium I was born in, but boy oh boy, are we experiencing it all. I'd made the wise decision to go off Twitter in December, but the corona dragged me back there -- mostly because local press conferences were being live streamed there and until Friday, I truly believe that if I didn't watch it live, I'd miss some lifesaving detail. That's no true. Sure, the shelf life of the guidance isn't too long, but it's been pretty consistently accurate in the thirty minutes after.
So things have been...interesting. There are so many other adjectives out there, and fear, worry, panic are probably the boldest in the word cloud. It gives me hope to read about the acknowledgement of our collective anxiety contagion. Common sense, rooted in both plain common sense and proportionate worry, is of course necessary. Less necessary is the constant link-bombing filled with terrible news. Lots of people are surviving the corona. It still doesn't mean we don't need social distancing and to curb the spread and not actively harm the most vulnerable of the populations. Nothing I've said in this paragraph is or should be new information for anyone.
Since you've made it this far, I think you deserve some happy distractions. This video of the penguins taking a walk around the Shedd aquarium is adorable. Kudos to Morning Brew for a handy guide on thriving in the quarantine. I recommend subscribing to it for a concise and non-dramatic summary of the state of the world each morning -- if it's coming to an end, I'd still want my daily dose of snark. Check out the badass Dr. Allison Arwady who is the Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health. We are lucky to have her leading the response, grounded in facts, experience, and competence. Attributes which clearly are not widely-valued in others parts of government.
It's obviously overwhelming. We are in the middle of a fucking pandemic, deeply worsened by the ineptitude of governments all over the world, the damaging belief of individual exceptionalism, and public health systems whose weaknesses were always known but never as visible as today. Of course people are stockpiling, these are unknown times, and apparently toilet paper rolls are a major way for you to feel in control (?!). There are A LOT of facts out there, live dashboards, how to flatten the curve, what's social distancing etc. I'm all for all the facts. But that doesn't mean it can't all feel too much. I love being home and pottering about, but I love it most when it's a choice and not a chosen necessity (I don't need a law to tell me to do the right thing in this scenario). Reading artificially feels like control. I had to take multiple sadness naps on Saturday, it all became too much. We are moving to tele-work starting tomorrow (in different times, this was one of my hopes).
I've decided to do a few things to keep myself grounded and as positive as I can be:
1. Limit news intake: watching the death ticker for the whole world is not helpful in any way. Twice a day is a good amount for updates, and if the world is ending between those two times, then someone will warn me.
2. Read all the cartoon strips and follow all the graphic novel artists: they usually bring together the macabre with a nice dose of humor.
3. Have a routine: getting up and leaving the house is a major driving force in me presenting as an adult. I don't want to fall into a pajama-wearing while on conference calls pattern. If it works for you, that is awesome. It's not s great for me.
4. Read fun books: I am not really trying to elevate myself during this time, I am trying more to entertain myself.
5. Feed myself: Nutella and strawberry ice cream, but also healthy home-cooked food. It's easy to fall back into a junk-food diet but I'd rather not. When this is over (and it will be), there will be sociological and epidemiological case studies, and one of them will be how people's relationships with food were impacted.
6. Breathe and be easy: finally, on one hand, it feels like cowardice and weakness to feel this impacted by something -- while I am not in the high-risk group, I still have a responsibility to not make it worse. So on one hand, nothing is personally wrong. On the other end, countries are on lock down and life sems to be cancelled. I have to find the space between holding myself accountable but also forgive? because there is no rule book. Everything we have to do runs so contrary to our daily way of living -- especially the not touching your face thing -- that I expect it's hardly unexpected to feel so off kilter.
So things have been...interesting. There are so many other adjectives out there, and fear, worry, panic are probably the boldest in the word cloud. It gives me hope to read about the acknowledgement of our collective anxiety contagion. Common sense, rooted in both plain common sense and proportionate worry, is of course necessary. Less necessary is the constant link-bombing filled with terrible news. Lots of people are surviving the corona. It still doesn't mean we don't need social distancing and to curb the spread and not actively harm the most vulnerable of the populations. Nothing I've said in this paragraph is or should be new information for anyone.
Since you've made it this far, I think you deserve some happy distractions. This video of the penguins taking a walk around the Shedd aquarium is adorable. Kudos to Morning Brew for a handy guide on thriving in the quarantine. I recommend subscribing to it for a concise and non-dramatic summary of the state of the world each morning -- if it's coming to an end, I'd still want my daily dose of snark. Check out the badass Dr. Allison Arwady who is the Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health. We are lucky to have her leading the response, grounded in facts, experience, and competence. Attributes which clearly are not widely-valued in others parts of government.
It's obviously overwhelming. We are in the middle of a fucking pandemic, deeply worsened by the ineptitude of governments all over the world, the damaging belief of individual exceptionalism, and public health systems whose weaknesses were always known but never as visible as today. Of course people are stockpiling, these are unknown times, and apparently toilet paper rolls are a major way for you to feel in control (?!). There are A LOT of facts out there, live dashboards, how to flatten the curve, what's social distancing etc. I'm all for all the facts. But that doesn't mean it can't all feel too much. I love being home and pottering about, but I love it most when it's a choice and not a chosen necessity (I don't need a law to tell me to do the right thing in this scenario). Reading artificially feels like control. I had to take multiple sadness naps on Saturday, it all became too much. We are moving to tele-work starting tomorrow (in different times, this was one of my hopes).
I've decided to do a few things to keep myself grounded and as positive as I can be:
1. Limit news intake: watching the death ticker for the whole world is not helpful in any way. Twice a day is a good amount for updates, and if the world is ending between those two times, then someone will warn me.
2. Read all the cartoon strips and follow all the graphic novel artists: they usually bring together the macabre with a nice dose of humor.
3. Have a routine: getting up and leaving the house is a major driving force in me presenting as an adult. I don't want to fall into a pajama-wearing while on conference calls pattern. If it works for you, that is awesome. It's not s great for me.
4. Read fun books: I am not really trying to elevate myself during this time, I am trying more to entertain myself.
5. Feed myself: Nutella and strawberry ice cream, but also healthy home-cooked food. It's easy to fall back into a junk-food diet but I'd rather not. When this is over (and it will be), there will be sociological and epidemiological case studies, and one of them will be how people's relationships with food were impacted.
6. Breathe and be easy: finally, on one hand, it feels like cowardice and weakness to feel this impacted by something -- while I am not in the high-risk group, I still have a responsibility to not make it worse. So on one hand, nothing is personally wrong. On the other end, countries are on lock down and life sems to be cancelled. I have to find the space between holding myself accountable but also forgive? because there is no rule book. Everything we have to do runs so contrary to our daily way of living -- especially the not touching your face thing -- that I expect it's hardly unexpected to feel so off kilter.
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