Captain's log: Day 6,548? No idea. It's been close to six months now since I last saw my office, or my coworkers, or most of my friends and family. Are we getting any better at all the distancing, at spending so much time without other people? One thing I know is I'm finding a lot of comfort in routine.
My work day is pretty much the same. I'm still so thankful that I can do this job from my home, and fairly easily at that. Not everyone is that fortunate. And I determined pretty early on during stay-at-home that I needed to stick to a fairly normal bed time, or I'd be way too tired in the morning. Without my morning commute to work in which I'd have almost an hour to sing along with the radio and drink my coffee, now I pretty much wake up and log in. My coworkers are so great, they even name our daily group chat with the day of the week, since none of us know what day it is anymore.
One of my longest friendships is with my friend and yoga teacher Natalie, and one of the things I most look forward to is doing online yoga with her a few times every week. It's the best thing about Wednesdays, for sure, and if I wake up in time on the weekend that's how I start the days too. It is really helping me to get through what sometimes feel like never-ending work days, to have things to look forward to, and yoga is a bright spot.
Back in March when we all locked ourselves into our homes, I was looking forward to cooking and baking, and making really good use of my free time. To some extent I'm still trying to do all of that, but when I need something to look forward to -- I think about what I'm going to order out for dinner. Of course it's not that hard to justify supporting my local restaurants either, but I definitely spend more time thinking about food than is probably normal.
As far as all of the projects and things I thought I would spend my newfound free time on... I have done a little more cleaning, sorting, tossing, selling. And I'm doing more cooking and baking, although not at all like I thought. Social media is both good and bad, on the one hand it is my main point of contact with all of my friends and family, as well as the outside world, but I'm spending probably too much time scrolling through facebook or instagram.
Photography is one thing I am managing to do more of, which really makes me happy. I've spent time photographing murals around Madison and Monona, I've spent more time outside taking pictures of the birds who visit. And I'm taking a billion cute photos of my cats, but who can blame me for that one? I have ideas for photo projects that I'll work on eventually, maybe post some of those here.
Are you typing again? Is it about us? Can we help?
The other thing I wish I were doing more of is reading, and in writing this I realize I will work on that more purposefully. There are so many wonderful things I want to read!
I hope you are all finding your new normal, settling in with whatever your routines are, or making new ones. Spending time keeping in touch with those who are important to you, and reaching out to others. Find things that you can look forward to, things that make you happy, and take good care of yourselves.
