It's okay to hate this time in our lives: Lessons for Surviving the Covid-19 Quarantine

The border collies loves the Covid-19 quarantine life.  He thinks its absolutely grand having all of us around all day to watch over, play with him and take him for walks.

As for me?  Well, I hate it.

I hate it so much.

I hate social distancing.  Hate that I missed my trip to San Diego to see my Cole’s Classroom peeps.  That we had to cancel the state FFA convention.  I hate that I won’t get the chance to shoot class pictures for Lincoln Elementary or the Goshen County prom in April and that I had to cancel about a dozen other shoots from mid-March to mid-May.  And I really hate having to tell my social butterfly of a daughter that she can’t go to the park and play with her friends.

In the last few days, I’ve seen lots of folks online say they are struggling with “the new normal.”

Friends, there is nothing normal about this.

Not.

One.

Thing.

Humans are made for community.  We are social beings.  Regardless of how you believe the human race came about, we came from community.  Either God made Eve for Adam or we evolved from monkeys, which are themselves social beings.  Anyway you slice it, we’re built for interaction.

Sitting home in our houses watching the world go by isn’t normal.  Not seeing friends and family isn’t normal.  Not swinging into the neighbor’s house when you see them out working in the yard isn’t normal.

Expecting you to simply adjust in a few short weeks isn’t fair.  And beating yourself up because you’re struggling?  That just makes it worse!

I’ve been social distancing for more than a decade now.  When Outdoor Guy and I got married, I moved from Cheyenne to Ten Sleep.  I went from running the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s information and education programs, playing coed volleyball, volunteering for Cheyenne Frontier Days and seeing my parents every day to being alone, in our house in Ten Sleep, all day.  It was a 45-minute drive to town for groceries and the nearest Target was probably 200 miles away.

I did not adjust overnight.  I could go places and experience community but my community was 354 miles away.  It was hard.  So, so hard.

Little by little, I’ve adjusted to a rural life.  I made friends, found things I enjoyed and embraced a more quiet life.  That life led me to blogging and photography and a whole host of really cool opportunities.  So I adjusted.  In fact, I’ve adjusted so well that I have the opposite problem of everyone else.  I don’t miss the outside world so much as I struggle with the intrusion of my private world.

Most days I work from home.  I write, send e-mail, edit pictures and design web pages.  I have about seven hours of quiet time each week day and I loved it.

Now those quiet hours are gone and my days are spent sharing my office/craft room with a very gregarious seven-year-old and trying to keep her educated and entertained.  If I can string together ten minutes of uninterrupted time, it’s a miracle. (Case in point, I’ve been interrupted four times as I tried to type the last two paragraphs.)

So what’s my point?

We are all struggling.  Every single one of us.

Even those of us who are staying positive and used to living and working remotely have had our normal turned upside down.

And that’s okay.

A friend shared that she’s anxious and sad because she was struggling to teach remotely and had all these indoor house projects she should be doing and she feels like crying most of the time.

Then to make matters worse, she feels anxious and sad that that she feels anxious and sad because she is still employed and has income and is healthy when so many people have lost their jobs or are sick or have lost loved ones.

It’s a feedback loop from hell and it will drive you absolutely nuts.  (For the record, I didn’t make up the term, Mark Manson did.  He uses the f-word a lot but he’s pretty dang smart if you want to check out his stuff.)

I can’t wave a magic wand and make this all go away.

But if I could give you some unsolicited advice, it would be this…

Stop calling this the new normal.  Normal implies that this is ho-hum everyday territory and it’s not.  Asking yourself to not only adjust to all of this but to thrive during all of this is simply setting yourself up for failure. Expecting to be okay with isolation and social distancing when we were never built for it and suddenly rock at homeschooling and being trapped inside and having your world flipped on its access is sheer lunacy.

Instead, be okay with not being okay.  In fact, be okay with hating every single minute of this business.  Be okay with sucking at teaching your kids and missing your friends and crying twelve times during the Live Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood special on CBS.

And don’t feel guilty because you are sad, scared, lonely, angry and frustrated.  That guilt only leads to more sadness, loneliness and frustration and BOOM…you’re stuck in the feedback loop.

You get to be sad.  And mad.  And happy and weepy and lonely.  You get to be all those things regardless of whether or not you are still working, still getting paid but not working, independently wealthy, etc.  Gratitude and frustration are not mutually exclusive.  Having feelings and missing things you used to do or want to do doesn’t make you selfish.  It makes you human.

So try this instead of feeling guilty or ashamed that you aren’t rocking this quarantine life, accept it.  Accept that you suck at it.

Stop beating yourself up that you suck at something you were never meant to endure. 

Our species was not created to live in isolation!

And don’t pressure yourself to “use this time wisely.”  You don’t have to paint the garage or learn Mandarin or take up knitting.  If those things make you happy and give you a sense of purpose, then by all means, knit away.  But please don’t pressure yourself to be a quarantine rockstar.

This isn’t your excuse to turn into a raging alcoholic or neglect your kids.  But it is permission to give yourself some grace.

I’ve heard this time in our lives compared to what our parents and grandparents endured during World War II.  And in some ways, it is like those times.  We’re all scared and uncertain about tomorrow.  We’re being asked to fight an enemy we don’t understand and stop a war we didn’t start.

And I’ve seen some memes saying we should all quit whining about staying home and sitting on our couches when that generation was asked to lay down their lives.

But again, but not knowing how to deal with this time in our lives and understanding that time in our history was worse can happen at the same time.

And that generation also had the advantage of being called into action.  They were given a task and purpose and asked to do what this country does best…put their heads down and work.  And they did it together.  It was “Band of Brothers” not “Dudes in a Lonely Fox Hole Ten Feet Apart.”  They lived and worked and sacrificied next to one another.  And we’re being asked to not work and sacrifice alone.

While we can certainly draw on the experiences of the greatest generation, I think we also have to recognzie that we’re being asked to do something few people in memorable history have ever been asked to do…stay apart to do your part.  So you’re forgiven if you don’t quite know how to handle this.

You’re forgiven if you cry at Lowes commercials or simultaneously live for and loathe Zoom.

Listen, no one expects you to rock the quarantine life.  No one expects you to have goals.  You need not search your soul for wisdom or start a new passion project or work with your kids so they are actually two grade levels ahead by September.

Here’s what I would ask of you…be kind.  To do something, however small, that brings you joy.  Feel gratitude for what you have without feeling guilty.  To show someone compassion.  To tell someone thank you.  Do something that brightens someone else’s day.  To help your kids get through this however possible and not smother your spouse with a pillow at night.

We’ll all come through the other side.  And if we can all get through this with nothing more than a little more kindness in our hearts and compassion in our souls and appreciation for each other, then, well, that’d will truly be something to behold.

Teresa