I’m at a point in quarantine where the immediate panic has somewhat abated. With rates of new cases starting to level off, the news grows less urgent. As everyone gets used to the new normal of staying at home, social media lacks liveliness, and online entertainment seems to lose its fun as well. We might be feeling information or entertainment overload in fact. But it also may be that, without the usual face-to-face interaction we are accustomed to, no matter how minimal, I’m finally feeling the distance caused by this prolonged physical distancing. I’m realizing how removed all-that-is-online is from my actual life.

But at the same time, the larger stresses of life are still alive for many people, including myself. Particularly anxiety about the future in terms of jobs and the economy. And that’s only in addition to all the worries of getting sick that everyone continues to have.

My actual day-to-day life is within the four walls around me. I’m confronted by the walls of my physical environment every day like never before. And since I hate housework with a passion, I’m especially confronted by the messes in it.

So while I still can’t control when I will stop having to worry about getting sick or getting work, I’m finding that taking control in the smallest of ways will get me into the habit of doing something that will help me get to that better place.

I started with rearranging my living room. Once I accepted that for at least the next two years possibly, much less the remainder of my current lease, I would not be having people over and using this space to entertain, I decided to make some changes. Because even for a small meeting, hosting outdoors would probably be the safer bet.

So I reconfigured the living room furniture to create two separate spaces for my roommate and I to use as work-from-home office spaces – complete with a window-view for her and a dividing screen between us. Then I repurposed a pretty glass bottle and dried roses that I had kept to decorate my new said work-from-home space (as well as a long-overdue cleaning of my furniture) and believe it or not, it not only helped create a warmer environment for both of us to get work done, but also gave me a sense of accomplishment and even control in a time of extremely little control. Maybe that’s one reason some people like to clean or organize in the first place.

Of course, that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of things (hello, papers) that I am confronted with daily that definitely need to be attended to as well, but now, every time I walk by that living room space, I feel that sense of satisfaction of efficiency achieved (in optimizing the space we are paying for!) as well as the aesthetic pleasure of seeing some beauty that I have created amongst the chaos. From just two little things! My next changes may not be as visually impactful but hopefully, they will be as useful in getting me closer to answering those larger questions in life.

#sars-cov-2 #coronavirus #work #job #career