A week into the shelter in place orders, a friend of mine asked me how I was handling everything. My response? "I'm great!" I had my health, my job, and as an introvert, social distancing isn't too difficult. I don't have children so I don't have to worry about homeschooling, child care, etc. I felt very grateful for my situation all things considered.
Fast forward 10 weeks later, all of the above is still true but I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not doing as great as I thought. My temperament has changed: I get easily frustrated and stressed. Take for example, Sunday morning I woke up to a not-so-cold refrigerator. The butter was soft but the fridge was working enough to keep things cold. Learning that my 10+ year old fridge wasn't working at its prime broke me. I couldn't focus on anything else and nothing comforted me (including knowing that we can have a replacement fridge delivered in 3 days). It took a few hours before I realized that it wasn't the fridge that was causing my breakdown. The fridge was symbolic of the current state of world. The world hasn't broke down completely, but we don't know how long the world can last in this unfamiliar state. Will we recovery? Have we reached the bottom? Etc. End of the day it's the unknown that is causing me anxiety and it's showing up in the most unexpected way.
I came across this article in the Huff Post today. I found it helpful and hopefully someone who may benefit from this will see this post.
As a side note, after cleaning out the coil and stuff, the fridge is going strong (knock on wood). Maybe this means the world will recover strong too! Glass half full perspective. 馃槉
