How to be Sure You are Surviving the Pandemic by Kathy Bosin

How to be sure you are surviving the pandemic.

Just know you are normal if you:

• Don’t sleep more than 5 hours/night
• Sleep more than 10 hours/night
• Have horrible dreams
• Don’t remember your dreams
• Can’t eat
• Eat too much
• Same for drinking
• Same for exercise
• Same for work
• Same for “productivity”
• You miss your family horribly
• You don’t miss them so much at all
• You feel guilty for having a non-essential job that you can do from home
• You feel fear for all essential workers every day
• That level of guilt feels unhealthy but you can’t stop it
• You have bad dreams about essential workers
• You want to rail against the government
• You recognize that won’t help
• You decided not to follow the news constantly
• You can’t stop following the news constantly
• You miss your friends/community so much
• You’re pretty cool with just being alone for as long as it takes
• At least you feel connected on social media!
• You limit your attention to social media to bare bones
• You want to go support local businesses!
• You’re scared to death to go support any businesses
• You want to simply write a check to support!
• You can only write so many checks to support
• You can’t imagine cooking for your family 3x/day forever
• You can’t imagine eating food that you didn’t cook for yourself
• You miss sports!
• You can’t imagine sitting in a stadium ever again
• You miss eating out!
• You pray that restaurants are figuring out how to re-open safely
• You’re pretty sure you’d rather buy gift certificates for some other time
• You’re looking at those head shields people are making on etsy
• You miss the mental stimulation of working with colleagues in groups
• You’re able to work from home comfortably, and don’t miss the distraction of colleagues
• Zoom is great!
• Zoom/webinar fatigue is real – ugh
• You miss having a fun, impromptu lunch any ol’ time in the comfortable kitchen at the Eastern Shore Conservation Center with Carol, Rob, Joan, Michelle, Katie, Lauren, Michael, Jim, David, Megan, Larissa, Owen, Julia, Suzanne, Elle, Matt, Amy, Jeff, Meredith, Heather, Tracy, Alan, Elizabeth, Hilary, Tom, Courtney, Rachel, Whitley, Dave, Beth Anne, Richard, Susan and you know you’re missed even if you’re not listed here. Awww. You guys!
• You feel even sadder after writing that list. 
• In fact, it’s becoming clear that this pandemic is starting to wear on you, dammit.
• Sigh. 
• You’re doing ok. 
• You got this!
•  A+!

Kathy Bosin is a contributing editor to the Spy newspapers and a team member of the Dock Street Foundation.