Why I’m Feeling Optimistic When Everything is Changing

My coworkers decided to make Friday “Formal Friday.” Because of COVID-19, we’re under a shelter-in-place order in Chicago, and are all bunked in our homes wearing PJs or sweats (on the bottoms at least — can’t see that part on video calls) every other day. Why not get dolled up for the biweekly breakfast meeting?

Me, I’m like “no thanks.” This is probably very revealing of my core character: a lazy non-joiner. I’ve been just fine in my leggings and grubby sweaters, with no make-up and somewhat clean hair.

But really this is a nice thing my coworkers are doing. In the two weeks since my company switched to a work-from-home policy, the whole office (< 50 people) has been creative in finding ways to connect while we’re all remote. We do shout outs with drinks at the end of the day Friday, kids and pets welcome; in honor of National Puppy Day, we posted a stream of cute pooches to Slack all day long; and there’s weekly trivia just for fun.

These kinds of things have definitely made the transition to working from home easier, though my daily rhythm hasn’t shifted too dramatically. As a child-free introvert, I feel like I’ve been training for quarantine my entire life. The challenge so far has been being home with the dog all day, who has a propensity to explode into a shrill bark if he hears even a whisper in the hallway.

But obviously something has shifted. Even that I have a job that I can do remotely feels like a great privilege as the unemployment rate is spiking. Even those of us who are still working face uncertainty about our jobs and paying our bills.

My emotions oscillate wildly, between relief that I’m safe and healthy, worry for friends and family who still must leave their homes for work, annoyance that I don’t have as much new free time as I hoped under quarantine, general anxiety about the pandemic (no doubt egged on by all the links in the Covid-Convo Slack channel at work) and guilt for feeling stressed because I’m at home all day with a gallon of bleach, toilet paper, and enough canned beans to last for days.

A few months ago, I had made a year plan with quarterly goals and everything. That’s been obliterated into insignificance. My partner and I were planning a vacation to Joshua Tree at the end of March which we’ve obviously had to postpone. I was excited to attend a tech and design conference that isn’t happening. My planner is loaded with white-out. And I don’t even care that much. Those plans seem irrelevant now that I don’t know when it’ll be safe to hug my friends or see coworkers IRL. My brain is incapable of thinking beyond next week. It’s occupied by stuff like:

• Should I still try to find hand sanitizer or Clorox wipes if 95% of the time I’m only touching surfaces in my own home (the other 5% is accidentally touching my face).
• Talking myself off the ledge that it’s The Virus(!) if I happen to cough.
• Should I finally pluck my eyebrows?
• I hope my moisturizer doesn’t run out soon.
• How can I avoid going to the grocery store as long as possible?
• I didn’t buy enough coffee, did I?

Despite all this, I’m feeling a general burst of optimism now, in this moment. What I really want to hope is that amidst all this uncertainty and emotional twirling, there will be some silver lining. That this blow-up to our routines will show us something, will illuminate something we couldn’t have seen otherwise, even a small thing.

I know this optimism is fueled in part because I’m financially OK now and healthy and not surrounded by tiny humans who need my attention. But I’m seeing how my coworkers are looking for ways to connect even though we’re all remote, how friends too are checking in with each other and finding ways to do things we would normally do together even when we’re apart, how we’re stepping in to support local businesses and others in need. That counts for something.

Originally published in my newsletter, Humdrum. Sign up to get more essays like this, on the random stuff we deal with everyday. Emailed monthly.

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