Oh hey, long time no see!
I first started this blog post on March 11. I’ve deleted and rewritten the whole thing at least 3 times. It’s really hard to put into words how our lives have all changed since then, right? Originally, I wanted this blog post to be a write up about where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing—a sort of call back to the old days of blog posts when things were more personal, less “evergreen”.
Not only has the last month felt like the fastest and longest of my life, I feel like our world has pretty much completely changed. Will things be any different after this? Or will everything be different?
I posted this on Twitter, but I really do think the first boom of bloggers in 2009-2011 was in part caused by the recession in 2008-2009. I know for me, I started blogging from my dorm room in 2009 when shit was going absolutely to hell in the “real world.” When I graduated in 2011, I couldn’t find a job—so I threw myself into blogging, it became part of my identity, and boom! Became part of my career, in many ways.
I wonder how this—that is, what is happening now, alongside the economic impacts—will change blogging in the future. I’ll admit to being incredibly frustrated by the rise of influencers; it’s made having my own blog more complicated, as I feel like I have to compete to work with brands who would prefer a ton of followers over genuine readership. (This isn’t a brag; my blog gets a significant amount of traffic, but God, do I hate Instagram.)
This is all to say one thing: in February, when I started a new temp job, I made the decision to step away from my blog for a little while to decide what to do.
The truth is that I love blogging. When I was laid off in July, I thought blogging might be a key to being part of my career. But the more I’ve tried to make this blog part of my career, the more miserable I have felt about the whole thing. I like writing about whatever I want to write about. I want to review make up again. I want to write about whatever I want again. I don’t want to have to worry about discount codes and monetization and promoting. I just want to write.
That was a lot of what I wanted to say when I started this blog post. Then… COVID19 happened. What can I write that hasn’t already been written?
The last month of my life has really flown by. For a lot of reasons! I often find when writing these life update posts, it’s best to structure things in “what I’ve learned.” So, let’s chat, shall we? Here’s everything I’ve learned in the last month.
1. Always be prepared.
My husband, Danny, has a relative that everyone makes fun of for saving everything. She saves Cool Whip containers and the remnants of every meal, no matter how small. To them, this was sort of a begrudging tendency towards penny pinching, caused by growing up in the midwest during the Depression.
Do you wonder what effect this quarantine will have on us? On our children?
Will I ever let us go without having a small stockpile of toilet paper, laundry soap, and hand soap ever again? Will I pay more attention to have nonperishables in my pantry? Will Forrest be more conscious of how his health effects those around him? Will he be offended by extreme hoarding?
Just something I’ve been thinking about. But this has made me realize how much more prepared I need to be. When the Governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, announced that schools would be closed until the end of March (and then, April 28), I immediately thought, “oh shit, what are we going to do!?” I didn’t have anything. I had nothing for craft projects. My printer was out of ink. My pantry was looking sparse.
I thought I learned my lesson during the snowstorm of February 2019, when we only had a few gallons of water saved up and we ended up melting snow on our wood stove to flush toilets every day. (It took hours.) Danny and I made a preparedness plan then. But, then, life got in the way. I got laid off. I started freelancing. I gave up on finding a job. We got busy. And we stopped being so prepared. I stopped grabbing a few extra cans of soup or broth when I went to the grocery store.
Anyway, if nothing else, this has taught me: always be prepared. Have hand sanitizer and bleach on hand at all times.
2. Late February was probably not an ideal time to start a new job (or maybe it was?).
That’s an exciting announcement though, isn’t it? I started a temporary job, only supposed to last 3 months or so, in late February. I was supposed to start March 1, as I am covering a woman on maternity leave, but things happen, you know. I started, got used to everything, and then… COVID19 hit.
It was like a wallop to the face, huh?
It’s been great though. If there is one way to show people I’m a great employee, it’s really keeping my head during all this crisis. The team transitioned to working entirely from home—and I was already there, with everything I needed to make it work. It felt good. It feels so good to be part of a team again. I love it so much and I love the work that I’m doing, because I feel like I’m learning a lot about what I do in a different way.
It’s definitely a weird time, at least looking at economic impacts, to be in a very temporary space. That being said: I’ve been a temporary space since July. I’m used to it and I think I will be ok after this. If I can survive everything I went through last summer, I can make it through another uneasy, difficult summer. (I wish I didn’t have to, but there we are!)
3. It’s ok to let go of the routines.
I am a routine driven person. I write about it a lot. I like having a routine. I like feeling like I have control.
But sometimes, the routine is just too much.
When Forrest’s school was shut down (right before Danny’s birthday—sorry Danny!), I immediately started making a schedule for him. I knew for his sanity, and mine, we needed to implement something right off the bat so he would feel safe and secure.
But we also needed to explain why he wasn’t going to school anymore.
This was all a big bummer because Forrest had been struggling with anxiety about school for a few months—which was a bit odd for him, but as a family, we were a bit all over the place in October to January. It’s sad for me and him that once he was more comfortable with school… it was gone. He’s been sad and confused about what’s happening, but at 4, I don’t really want to scare the pants off of him.
I knew he needed a routine. I knew I wanted to keep school going for him in whatever small way I could.
But each day, the routine works up until a certain point. And then it no longer works at all. Usually that point is about 7:30 at night. In my ideal schedule, we would get Forrest ready for bed, snuggle him in, and say night night.
That is not how it works. We’ve ended most days the past two weeks with brushing teeth and then Forrest crawls into bed with me to watch a movie. I know, I know… this is potentially the worst sleep habit. But he’s only 4 and he’ll only be 4 for a little while. I don’t want his memories of this time to be scary or weird or dystopian like mine are. I want him to remembering getting to watch his favorite movies every night before falling asleep with me.
So yeah, the routine is important. But I kind of had to let it go too.
4. Turning off the news is ok.
Every day for work, we do a check-in and one of the things we do is talk about any positive or negative news we’ve heard that others might find interesting. For the first few days of my entire team being at home, we all had a ton of news to share: this state was doing this, or we learned this about the virus. Whatever.
By Thursday, we were all really quiet during that part of the meeting. A lot of us simply couldn’t pay attention to the news as much. It was too overwhelming. Too scary. Too much information in some ways and too much of it was misinformation one way or another. We all had to step away.
it felt really good. I believe in being an informed citizen and right now, it feels a bit like my job to be up-to-date on what’s going on. Comparatively, I’m good at staying up to date on just about everything. But at a certain point, it’s not just collecting information. It’s obsessively trying to stay on top of the situation as a way to calm my anxiety—and thereby, making it worse. Every piece of information I learned, I found myself getting more and more anxious. Being snippy. Being unable to focus on tasks.
I stayed off Twitter over the weekend. I muted related terms on my Twitter feed. I tried to stay off Facebook and Instagram. It felt good. I read. I watched TV. I wrote. It felt good.
So yes, I like to stay informed and I’ll probably start to view a few select sources for COVID19 information. But if you, like me, are very easily overwhelmed by too much information, let me be the one to tell you: you have permission to stop paying attention to the news.
5. I have so many projects to finish.
I have all the time in the world now. No weekend trips. No spring break trip that Danny and I have had planned for months. No going to Target and lunch on the weekends. I can’t even visit my mom! We are at home, doing the responsible thing. We moved into our house in July: 8 long months ago. I have so many projects to finish. Rooms I haven’t painted. Boxes that I still have not unpacked. Closets that are still just stuffed with a mishmash of things. Woof! I guess now is the time. I started a list. I’m check it twice. Don’t judge me.
