Hey friends & strangers!
I hope you are staying clean and staying sane. There’s also a lot of other things I hope for you (hope you have access to french fries, good tequila, moisturizing lotion, etc.) but those two are pretty high up on the list, and I don’t think you want this entire blog post to be a list of my wishes for you (cue Rascal Flatts).
I think this is the start of my fifth week working from home. Emphasis on the “I think” because everything is a big blur and who even knows what day/week/month it is.
Who Even Knows What Quaran-Time It Is?
I feel like this whole global pandemic thing is kind of like an airplane flight when they tell you “we’ll be landing in a few moments”. A moment is literally the VAGUEST measurement of time that exists. Like how many minutes make up a moment? How many miles per moment are we moving? Do moments move slower if the guy next to me is snoring? Or if he won’t stop talking?
And despite the many flights I’ve been on, I still have not figured out the exact flight-moment calculation. I also believe it has a mysterious weighting factor which causes the exact calculation of a flight-moment to change drastically for every flight.
That’s pretty much how the rona (yea we’re on a nickname basis) is going. Sooner or later, someone is going to tell us we’ll be able to return to normal in a few moments, but nobody is going to reveal to us the complex algorithm they are using to calculate a quarantine-moment. Luckily for y’all I’m a math minor, so I can guarantee you that a quarantine-moment is VERY, VERY long, it moves VERY, VERY slow and when they say a few moments, they’re actually saying a few weeks to months. So you should just start planning accordingly.
ANYWAY, rant over. Back to a different, more focused rant. (Can you guys believe I haven’t talked about my shower habits yet in this blog? LOL guess I have now.)
I don’t know about you, but I have no interest in ever doing something like this again. It’s THE WORST. I mean, I love my house aka office aka school aka cafeteria aka bar aka gym, but when I’m stuck in it all the time I don’t tend to notice all the things I love about it. I tend to notice the dead bugs on the windowsill, the dog slobber stains on LITERALLY every wall (looking at you Rex), and our super ugly sunroom door.
Every Trapped Inside Scenario Has a Bright Side?
I’ve been reminding myself to focus on the positive, though. Like all the windows we have (dead bugs aside) letting sunlight into our home and our sweet pups (slobber and barks aside) and how lucky I am to be healthy, have company and have the privilege to work from home.
And I know you all have been suddenly thankful for all of the simple things as well.
How do I know this?
Because I’ve been watching.
I’ve actually mostly just been listening, I haven’t nanny-cammed your homes or anything.
And the most unexpected people are suddenly grateful for the most underwhelming things (and a lot of understandable things too).
Y’all have come out of the woodwork to talk to friends you haven’t spoken to since 2013.
Y’all are suddenly sentimental about your mediocre employee’s last day at work.
Y’all remembered that Earth day is coming up, when you’ve never celebrated Earth day before.
Y’all stopped leaving negative reviews for restaurants and now are only leaving glowing reviews. Turns out forgetting to give you a plastic fork actually doesn’t need to result in a 1-star review.
Y’all met your neighbor who moved in 8.7 years ago, and you’re really proud of yourselves (me, this is me).
Y’all decided to look through old photos, artwork and school work and realized your high school experience (and your haircut) wasn’t so bad.
Y’all started watering your plants because they’re another living thing to talk to (so long as you keep watering them).
Y’all realized your office chair that you never sat in before is actually really comfortable and thank goodness cause you live in it now.
And I could go on. I’m not making fun of you. Okay, well, I am. But I’m also making fun of me. And I’m making fun of everyone. And jokes aside, I love the whole thing, because one of my simple gratitudes is that I can laugh about this less-than-ideal scenario.
Just Keep Laughing
I keep laughing at the things pre-Quarantine QL (aka L) would be complaining about right now if it were regular April, instead of Quarantine April.
QB sleeping in super late. TBH, I’m just kinda happy to get 2ish hours to hang out by myself.
When the store is out of 93% lean ground beef and I get stuck with 80/20. Again, just glad that I can make some tacos to soak up all those margaritas I’ve been drinking.
That time I had super itchy toes. I decided that if itchy toes were my worst problem, I had it pretty good.
All of my crooked picture frames. At least I have picture frames to remind me of the distant people I once knew.
The snow. HAHA kidding, I still totally complained about the snow last week, even as I watched it from inside and forced Ben to let our dogs out for three days.
But it's not regular April. And instead of complaining about all of those things, now I’m just glad that I can go outside (but also everyone else should stay inside and stop entering my six foot bubble) and thankful for the sunshine (but also stop shining in my eyes while I’m working).
Point is, when you get a chance to take a step back, you realize there are a lot of little things to be grateful for, a lot of big things you haven’t even taken the time to notice, and that maybe sometimes you’re too harsh on other people and you don’t need to send quite so many angry emails about moldy fruit or surprise mustard or your refund taking too long (again, me. I SUCK).
Remember to Have a Positive Quaran-tude
Maybe we didn’t need this whole Quarantine, but we definitely needed some perspective. We get super caught up in our inconsequential day-to-day problems. We (ME) complain about the silliest stuff. So, let's take a step back from ravenously hunting for toilet paper and recognize the upsides to Quarantine: that we’ve all had an opportunity to reset and be more thankful about the simple things.
Cheers,
QL
P.S. Not to be THAT person, but I got a gratitude journal in January, so I was totally into this before it was cool. Just saying.
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