---
I'm struggling, guys. I consider myself a professional workaholic who, up until the quarantine, thrived on a 35+ hour work-week plus school plus a weekend made up of equal parts hanging out with my adorkable boyfriend and doing homework and watching anime. Basically, my life should be as busy if not busier than Tina Fey's during that period when she was playing Sarah Palin AND needed Oprah to go on 30 Rock AND had to plan her daughter's birthday party. (...and yes, that was my one connection for this post...)
 |
| Mah boo with his fresh-cut hair sippin' on boba tea. By the way, I thrive on cute photos of my boyfriend, especially during this quarantine! |
Of course, life could be worse. I've talked to people who are single parents supporting four kids who are now unemployed. I'm sure there are people who planned to be married this April whose weddings are deemed "unnecessary" and have to postpone their weddings. Although, I doubt there guests could have arrived and the businesses providing DJ services or cakes or bouquets are probably closed anyways.
Basically, we're all struggling, guys. But we're also all in it together. Life is hard, there are crazy people on beaches and at parties that are just begging to get sick or arrested or whatever. I'm just saying that I'm happy for school and I'm blessed to be able to communicate with you all. These simple interactions really bring life into my day, and I hope we can all lend each other strength and kindness during this time because who knows how each person is individually suffering through this quarantine. Let's get through this together and be victors at the end of this time.
(Also, some of y'all should start learning how to play an instrument or how to be excellent photographers during this time. We can all use this time to personally improve ourselves and our skills, or improve relationships virtually. We can do this!)
Holly, I started reading this post without looking to see who posted it, and by the time I got to "35+ hour work-week plus school plus a weekend made up of equal parts hanging out with my adorkable boyfriend and doing homework and watching anime", I knew exactly who it was. I also struggle when I am not always doing something, whenever I sit down to scroll on instagram or look at myself in snap filters (...or watch some tiktoks), I have the intense nagging feeling that I need to be doing something else, something productive. Maybe the trick is trying to see these self-indulgent things as being productive towards our mental/emotional/physical state? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteAnd you're right, we're all struggling together, but there are so many good things that can and are coming out of this awfulness. I check the blog multiple times a day to see if anyone has posted or commented anything new, because you guys always make my day better. I'll tell you something that I heard on a podcast today that warmed my heart, because we all need a little piece of happiness right now.
A NICU nurse wrote in to the podcast to say that, in this time of schools and daycares shutting down, many of the NICU nurses (who are mostly women with children) now are still working but have no access to childcare. When schools shut down, people from other parts of the hospital immediately started volunteering to babysit while the mothers were unable to be home with their kids. How awesome is that??
Moral of the story: Kindness goes a long way, especially in a time like this.
Holly, I totally agree with your comment on working. I have always been someone who works 20+ hours a week, while also taking 15-21 credit hours. I think I function so well in high stress because it is all I knew in high school. In high school, I worked a job 20+ hours a week, played 2 sports, had school work and also was always doing crossfit. Needless to say I never stopped moving. Now that I am furloughed from both my jobs, I AM STRUGGLING! I so badly just want to go back to work, because with the constant chaos of my work/ school life, I am becoming a huge procrastinator! I am also struggling because I was supposed to take a trip in April to go see two of my best friends that I have not seen since January of 2018. For obvious reasons I can no longer go and it stinks, but we have adapted and now we try to facetime a couple times a week! Keep staying strong, we can do this!
ReplyDeleteThis time is so weird and unprecedented it's hard to find any kind of sense in it. I completely sympathize with your frustration and hopelessness, because I feel it too. I'm doing my online classes while also helping my younger siblings out with their online classes and does anyone actually know how to use Zoom?? We'll get through it. It will end. Hopefully, we will emerge from this mystifying time as better, more proactive people.
ReplyDeleteZoom is pretty intuitive. If you meet with me, I'll send you a link, you'll click on it, and that's about it. (You do have to give permission to your camera and mic, though.) Does that help?
DeleteYes, that helps. I don't need Zoom myself currently, but it was stressful trying to help my siblings sign in to their Zoom meetings!
Delete