Each day, I sit down at my desk in my home office (guest room) for a couple hours of online tech support for the teachers as they deal with Home Learning. This new opportunity to get ½ my hours back after 5 weeks without work was a godsend, the gift of administrators who have been doing everything in their power to help me keep some kind of income since campus closed due to the pandemic. Other than this, I have time. “Free” time (without the freedom). Yet, I haven’t written a single blog post, poem, story, or journal entry. My brain exists in some kind of existential fog, incapable of expressing itself in more than the odd Facebook rant, and even those haven’t gone far, mostly deleted before publishing.
Yet, I don’t have kids to balance the huge load of online learning with general parenting. I don’t have a husband who needs to use my space, or laptop, or spend time with. I’m not working all that much, and rarely leave the house, so I have way more time to write than ever before. No outside distractions. No excuses. Except maybe that is my excuse?
Being a semi-unemployed, mostly-quarantined, insomniac, singleton in the time of a global pandemic leaves the brain way too much time and space. Thank God for my mum, because if I lived alone, it would be even worse.
This mental fog in which I dwell hits whenever I try to focus on something that requires deeper thought. I can get through work pretty well because it’s mostly looking for content, uploading stuff to a Google site, or emailing parents and teachers back about the reading program. Nothing requires truly deep thought. I can watch TV, but only lighter programs or shows I’ve seen before. I can read, but again, only lighter fare or rereads. I couldn’t even finish a puzzle.
Even now, my head is fuzzy and my eyes are having trouble focusing. Creating each sentence is like digging through mud. An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education helped me feel more sane about my mental deficiencies. “We can’t read. We can’t think. We’re having difficulty communicating. It’s all the profound effects of stress” The Harvard Business Review published an article explaining how what we are experiencing with our emotions and thoughts during this exceptional time is grief, actually several types of grief at once.
This makes sense to me, as I can remember my brain reacting in a similarly floaty way as my dad was dying, and when my sister was having some health problems when she was pregnant, and when I’ve been in a couple different periods of deep depression.
The thing is, I wasn’t expecting my brain to do this now. The day after my campus closed due to a stay-at-home mandate, I made a list. I was going to be Productive! I was going to be Creative and Efficient and get So Much Done. I would come out of this season more awesome than ever. Possibly with a book deal, a more toned body, the thanks of friends whose lives I had made better, a thoroughly KonMari-ed room, a signature cocktail, new life skills, the cure for insomnia, and a redone blog without that darn error code at the top that I just can’t get rid of.
Instead, I’m definitely on track to gain the Covid 15 as my mum has taken up baking again. I’ve had sinus infections and allergies, so have spent a good amount of time in bed, though my sleep is worse than ever (and that’s pretty darn bad, considering my lifelong insomnia issues). My closets and drawers are as messy as ever. I haven’t Facetimed my besties since the first week of this. I managed to get the ingredients for Moscow Mules in one of our Instacart orders, but other than that have been quite happy with just two fingers of scotch, neat. And I haven’t written a word before this rambling thing. I am the poster girl for Quarantine Brain, except instead of a Fight or Flight instinct, I Freeze.
I’ve got friends who have been using this time well. Reading Good Books. Writing. Drawing. Painting. Cleaning. Baking. Adopting pets. Raising kids. Learning new skills. And I’m just here, proud of myself for putting on non-pajama shorts today (at noon, after I finished working online). Ah well, to each her own.
The one thing holding me together is the same reminder I’ve needed my whole life, the reminder than God loves me. I can rest in that knowledge. He doesn’t love me because I have reached a certain level of productivity, in fact, there is nothing I can do to make him love me any more than he already does, because his love is already complete. Even when these blurry eyes of mine are having trouble focusing on anything, even Him, God is still there loving me.
How are you holding up during this time? Comment here, or on my social media, or DM me to chat more about it.
I need to get pajama shorts — Ive been wearing sweat pants and melting. But seriously, so good to read your blog. And to remember we cannot make God love us more than he already does.
Pajama shorts are so necessary now that it’s getting hot! Thanks for your kind words. Love you!
I’m finding this brain melt interesting. I had a cleaning task list I made up when I found out I was going to be off work for a month. I started out strong, got most of the things checked off, but there is also this fog. If there is a list and I can check it off, I can do it. but then I have days where I can barely get out of bed. It’s been hard.
I’m thinking about deleting and not replying, but hopefully this makes sense and is worth keeping.
Definitely worth the reply. Thank you. We are in the midst of our brains dealing with trauma, and it’s so weird when it stems from global events & an invisible disease instead of something more graspable. Love you, Kirsten. I pray you can allow yourself rest when you need it. ❤️
I have friends who have asked if I’m sewing masks. And I love to sew usually. But, I’m surviving right now. Grateful. But surviving. Not creative. Just making it through. And pretty good for all that. But I am definitely not the super-creative-in-a-pandemic person.
I’m thankful for so many things right now. And I’m amazed by what some people have done during this times.
Yeah, that’s a tough one. My mum made masks for the family, and all these other people wanted them. And local charities needed them. But she was burnt out after ours, just had no ability left to make any more. And she felt guilty. Poor thing. I get it. I wish I could be one of the people who was doing All The Things right now. But for some of us, that’s just not God’s plan at the moment. I pray peace and rest in Him. ❤️