My “job” during the quarantine
Reflection on and appreciation of my time spent in quarantine with my partner.
The plan
For the second time in the past 2 years, I had to file for unemployment. With the experience of being through this before, I knew exactly what to do. Despite it being temporary and not unusual in a COVID-19 world, the basics were the same. My “job” was to better my work-self.
Or so I thought.
Writing up my lists, I had a “to-be-learned” list for all those courses and books I put off, and a “to-be-improved” list for all my current websites. This way I could boost the web development company I had, while the other businesses I’m involved with were all shut down. All those glorious plans I had for redesigns, content-type developments, and general content rewriting, were finally going to get done! All those skills and desired abilities were going to be learned!
Not only that but with everyone at home and bored, people would have more time to read. I even saw my old fiction short-stories finding new life with added favorites and follows. This could be my perfect time to write! Maybe even revamp that old blog site I have… being as this is the first blog I’ve written in over a year.
What a time to be stuck in my house on a computer!
Example: Swim school page redesign with a new testimonial, my photos, altered dolphin logo for “tips”, and CSS classes.
The reality
After several weeks, I have to admit I did not complete quite as many projects as I had thought. This time, my partner was also unemployed and we were going through something totally new. Instead of just being an employee laid off and waiting to be rehired, we had our businesses to think about. Loans to evaluate, news and regulations to constantly relearn, and most importantly, an empty store to check in on.
My job during the quarantine was helping to keep my and my partner’s mental health from crumbling.
This did include company-related items, like writing internal SOPs, crafting our marketing, and constant brainstorming between the two of us. But it also included doing mindless activities with my partner. We binge-watched over 20 seasons of Survivor, assembled 7 puzzles, and of course, baked bread. Well, several different loaves of bread, muffins, tortillas, cookies, chocolate chess pies, and a chocolate souffle. For a few of our weeks home, we were the only people each of us saw. We had to get our social fixes from each other, sticking together in the house and finding new activities to do.
In normal circumstances, I would never spend hours just assembling a puzzle or watch more than 1 hour of TV a night. I’m the type of person that will criticize myself if I’m not productive enough, even after a full 8–10 hour workday. So coming out of this quarantine with little done seems absurd and quite embarrassing. I had WEEKS of free time.
Together we had created different ‘couple’ goals, totally separate from my lists. Basically, don’t get divorced and don’t lose the businesses. We accomplished them and I have to say: that’s enough. I don’t need to guilt myself into feeling bad about not accomplishing everything.
What I did accomplish was very important and definitely enough.
