I have been thinking about everything that has transpired in the past 6 months and I am still in disbelief this happened. Now don't get me wrong, I totally understand what is happening and why we are quarantining and social distancing but it still seems foreign. How in the world did we wake up on March 14th and the whole world changed and what's even weirder, the last normal day for us was March 13th AKA Friday the 13th- the most notorious bad luck day; it makes me laugh a lot. It would be our luck.
I am smart but wrapping my head around all the information is hard. In the beginning I was very overwhelmed and unsure what to think. My emotions were all over the place and I was a mess. I felt like it was taken very seriously by some people and then other people didn't take it seriously. After six months, I still think its a mixed bag of peoples reactions and how they feel about this.
Here in New Jersey, most of the restrictions has been lifted and most places are back open and school started yesterday. I feel as if we are being held under these emergency orders that have been in place since March is a little overkill at this point. We all need to assess the risks for ourselves and do what we think is right. COVID definitely has not gone away but we learned to live around the flu and other virus' that have popped up. We should be able to live around COVID as well.
[[Can I just make a point how stupid we-The United States- must look that we have to be told to wash our hands? WHAT?!]]
I am all for wearing a mask and keeping others safe. It seems like the simplest way to protect ourselves and others. In March, mask wearing wasn't really a thing yet and I felt since I had to go through security in my building, I should wear a mask. Sometimes there would be one guard, sometimes five. I would put the mask on to get through security and then rip it off once I was away from them. I would almost have a panic attack every time I put the mask on. My heart would start to race and all I could focus on was the thing over my face. We now have to wear a mask if we are in a common area of the building but in our own offices, we can remove them. Now after wearing a mask daily for a few months, my heart still races, not as terrible and I feel more comfortable wearing it. Maybe its because I bought "cute" masks, maybe I am getting used to it, who knows but I will continue to wear the mask because if that will keep me safe and you safe, I am all for it.
Speaking of keeping safe, I am in the group of "immunocompromised persons" and its scary to think I am relying on others to keep me safe, I have come to realize that I can only control what I am doing. I choose to limit my interaction with others by going to stores early in the day, and avoiding super crowded places. I have waited until August to set up doctor appointments and get my hair cut. The only consistent place I have gone is work.
Work has been weird. The public has not been allowed into my building since March 17th and while that has been very nice, it was very strange in the beginning. I work in a busy building that the public frequents all the time. To see no one but (limited) employees in the hallways, is strange. I've gotten used to it and while its nice not to have those interruptions, I wonder how its going to look once the public is allowed back in.
Another thing that in the beginning, was hard to understand was, working in the office and not from home. I was angry that we were in a building during the height of it. We had a social distancing schedule for a few months where half the office would come in on certain days and the other half would come the other days. I am lucky that I have my own office, this helped the anger I had, coming into the office. Lysol was/is my friend in those early days and keeping my windows open for fresh air made it even better. I employed a lot of different calming techniques during the day when I was overwhelmed- deep breathing, stretch breaks and yoga on my lunch.
One thing that didn't not slow down was our workload. We were inundated with mail- since that was the only thing we could do without the public. All of our in person processes became mail in processes. It was weird in the beginning trying to explain to people what they had to mail into us but now its old hat. I am thankful in one way that we have been so busy, it kept my mind off of all the unknowns. I heard some of the other offices like mine have been closed since March and I couldn't imagine the amount of mail that has piled up in the past six months. I would cry; looking back at what I have done in six months, the volume is insane.
I relied heavily on my therapist in the beginning of the pandemic. I think one of the sessions in the beginning, I broke down and cried to her via a virtual session. I never had done that in my 5 years of seeing a therapist. It felt like I hit a wall and I was stuck. She listened and validated my feelings and provided me with some things that I could do to keep the overwhelming feelings at bay.
Exercising really helped with the feelings. I tried virtual yoga classes with a few different instructors; I tired Pure Barre with Andrea Rodgers on Openfit; Country Heat and Cize on Beachbody; long walks around my neighborhood and by the river and Standup Paddleboarding on the creek were my favorites overall. I knew I needed a distraction and exercise totally helped. After the spring, I only really stuck with walks and paddleboarding in the summer. Now its the fall, I am going to try to incorporate one or two virtual classes a week. I know I need to move my body more and I think it would be beneficial in so many ways.
I stayed in contact with friends sporadically. I know everyone has been having their own challenges with how they are dealing with all of this. I know personally, I become withdrawn from others when things get hard. I am stubborn and tend not to ask for help. Even though, I don't speak to my friends often, I pray for them and their families each day and hope everything is okay.
Its September and I feel like I have a routine (which is something that I thrive in) and its a newer normal than it was back in March. I feel like we all have somewhat come to terms with this and we are doing our best. I am hoping something changes and I hope people learn from this. I pray that we all make it through this and we are grateful in the end for the small things we have been missing over the past 6 months.
Looking forward, what the next six months brings? I have no idea but hope that things get slowly better. As much as I want things to get back to normal, I don't think normal will look like what we were used to. It will be different and I know one day in the future we will talk about this crazy time but for now, I am not complaining about this new normal- it could always be worse.
[[Do what makes you feel comfortable ]]
How are you dealing with everything?
-gabrielle
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