“Think of all the extra time you'll have now to get caught up on all those things you've been putting off!” I had heard them so much the last couple of days as the quarantine slowly marched its way towards us. I had said them to myself in an effort to put a silver lining on the storm clouds off in the distance. But that phrase, no matter how it is presented, is just another way of causing stress and guilt in a time already bombarded with the same.
"Time to start that art project.:"
“I can finally finish that book.”
“Time to finish the paint job in the kitchen.”
“Now I have time to learn a new language.”
“Maybe I'll work my way through one of the dozen cookbooks I've collected over the years.”
They were all things that I had heard in the past couple of days as cities, states, and countries closed down. It was on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. What was your Quarantine Project?
I was taken up by it. With all the stress of working day in and day out, now I was faced with the prospect of time off. Gloomy and doomed time off to be sure, but time off nonetheless. I would be able to take all of the energy that had been going towards work and I could inject that pure, distilled effort directly into all the back-burners on the stove that is my life. A stove that desperately needed cleaning now that I had the time to look at it.
The bar I work at shut down on a Monday. Just like that, I could take the beginning of a workweek and just do a little hop, skip, and a jump into my quarantine routine. Wake up early at 6 am... OK, maybe 7 am... make a healthy breakfast, take the new puppy on a walk, and then sit down for a day of writing. Breaks for lunch, dinner, and trying to get my puppy to stop chasing the cat would round out my day. All in all, a pretty decent plan if you just ignored the fact that my entire income had just been taken out behind the farm and put down.
I went to bed that night a mixture of excitement for this new, hopefully short, chapter in my life and anxiety because, well, there was still the beginnings of a pandemic on our hands and the world was watching with bated breath.
I woke up to my alarm at 7 am, just as I had planned. My puppy and I locked eyes and looking at her disbelieving stare was like gazing into a mirror. She wound herself tightly into her curled up ball as if to say, “You do what you want, but I'm staying here.” I had to agree. It was a bit too early. I hadn't woken up this early in eons. No sense burning myself out all at once. I could ease my way into this pool of freezing cold earliness.
I groaned my way out of bed at 10:45 am.. an hour and a half past when I normally did. I felt a little guilty, but kept it down by telling myself that I would do better tomorrow. I took the puppy on her walk and put food down for her. I kept my pajamas on, cause I was working from home. I had waited my entire life for this. It was like having pajama day back in grade school. So I sat down at my computer, drank my coffee, cracked my knuckles, and wrote. I took breaks maybe too frequently. I kept browsing the news for updates on Covid-19. I had a lunch of Oreos and potato chips. I did not get as much done as I thought I would. But again, plenty of time to keep it going.
I went to bed that night at 9 pm, ready to wake up at 7 am with the power of a good sleep on my side.
I got up at 8 am. I took the dog on her walk. I laid down in bed as she was eating.
I woke up at noon. The puppy was curled up at the foot of the bed sound asleep as well. She didn't have anything on her agenda today after I had taken to keeping her and the cat apart. I groaned and rolled out of bed. No time to change, I told myself. I kept my pajamas on. I wrote a bit. I made a late lunch. I ended up watching movies on the couch saying that I might be able to take inspiration for some of my stories from them.
From then on, I was up at 10 am. Some days I opened my word processor. Most days I didn't. It was fine. I had plenty of time. And across the internet, I saw the same thing. The massive projects that people had planned for their time in quarantine were simply... not being done. They weren't forgotten. They weren't ruined. They just did not have the energy.
We didn't have work. Our energy wasn't going anywhere that we could see. And yet, it was still gone.
For all that people first thought that this quarantine was going to be a time to redirect our energy into getting things done, that could not be farther from the case. We still have work. We still have a place that our energy needs to go. It goes to coping. It goes to keeping ourselves going when we are away from friends, family, and our normal, everyday work life. Stress has always been invisible other than the small signs of a bouncing leg or a rough night's sleep. We have had practice seeing stress come from work and life before by simply being in those situations for so long.
This stress was new. This stress was as invisible as its cause. It came over the news and the radio. It made itself known in tiny whispers of “what if's” and statistics. It was in the jump that you get when you hear a cough. It was in watching the death rates go up and thinking of the people in your life and questioning “which one?” Stress moves to anxiety. Grocery stores turn into back alleys where knives are coughs and muggers are now just people who wear cloth masks for safety instead of criminal intent.
The world isn't ending, but sometimes it can sure feel like it. Stress is building up and all of our regular outlets are locked down and banned for the good of ourselves and our neighbors. Now we sleep too much or we sleep too little. We panic buy at grocery stores to make ourselves feel better and then we eat our feelings with junk food and drive-thrus. We sit down to Netflix and Hulu to simply escape into problems that at least have solutions at the end of the season. I do not say this with condescension or judgment. I do all of this all the time, quarantine or not. But now, our entire society suffers from what I and many others do. We all have a group case of anxiety and depression.
I wish someone had told me when I had first set my alarm for 7 am. This is not the time to finish your book. This is not the time to paint the kitchen. This is not the time to learn a new language. This is not the time to find something to fill the void on your plate that your work life has left. The void left behind is one that still takes up space. Your plate is still full. This is the time to take care of yourself and reach out from 6 feet away to offer help to your neighbor. This is the time to buckle down and endure. This is the time to talk and plan and give just a little glimmer of hope to those who might not have much left.
I'll be the voice I wish that I had heard. Don't finish that book, wash your hands. Don't paint the kitchen, stay sane. But maybe you should work your way through that cookbook. Oreo's and potato chips don't do you any favors in this fight.
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