Hello, Internet friends. I hope you’ve been well, and the people you love are well, too, given the current circumstances we find ourselves in. It’s been nearly a month since I’ve written on these digital pages, and indeed it has taken that long for me to return to some form of normalcy. Things happened so quickly: from the first news of the coronavirus making it to the San Francisco Bay Area, to the enacting of the shelter-in-place directive that’s been extended to the beginning of May. It was a mad dash to get everything in order for the extended home-stay, the major one being the transition to working from home.
When you are confined to the house every single day of the week, the days do seem to blend in together. You’d wake up and have no idea what day of the week it is, needing a fumbling of the phone to tell you that it is Saturday, a day that you don’t need to login to the web portals at work. For a time, there was no normalcy to be found, even if home life and work life started to become consistent. Because I am consciously aware that it’s not okay on the outside world, no matter how nice it is to jump out of bed and right to the front of the computer screen to start working.
But I’m immensely fortunate; my line of employment at least provides a work-from-home option, rather than the alternative that millions of Americans are currently facing: getting laid off. I try hard to not take this for granted, and it only takes a few scrolls of the twitter feed to remind myself that there are far worse things that can currently happen than being stuck at home, virtually assisting people with the intricacies of Zoom meetings.
As terrible as it may sound, last week was the first time this new normal felt okay, and I was then ready to return to the habits I kept before this whole coronavirus thing happened. Perhaps I may have used the virus outbreak as a crutch and excuse to be lazy, but it wasn’t a complete waste: I took some of the time to get my mental health in order (I finally got around to a bit of Alan Watts). The anxiety is very real, and even though I’m an introverted homebody at heart, the need for everybody else to also stay at home is not something I particularly enjoy.
One of those habits is of course writing on this blog the standard four times a week, and starting today, I’ll be here to fulfill that self-prescribed duty. I’ll catch you all tomorrow.
Spring always come on time.