Tired of quarantine yet? Yeah, me too. So I’m gonna talk about it.

Anxiety in the time of quarantine is a THING man. At first it was like, “WOOOO welcome to the thunder-dome everyone! Now you know how I feel all the time!” Then it was like “man I’m bored” and then, “depression has set in” (literally – my therapist and I recently discussed how specifically depression and hopelessness was the theme of April) and May was just restlessness and “over it”. The time of Zoom fatigue and lack of leaving the house got to me. I feel like June has become the “I don’t care anymore” or “if we don’t open up soon…*” month as a follow up.
*(Many places have started opening – the county I live in has not)

Things I pretended I’d do in quarantine:

• Cook through all of Chrissy Teigan’s second cookbook
• Workout every day
• Meal plan
• Get 10,000 steps (surprisingly hard without my Treaddesk)

Things I thought I’d do regularly and yet procrastinate (then scramble):

• This blog (I think I have 7-10 posts ready or near ready and just…not scheduled because I don’t do the images)
• Career development
• Meal planning and prep
• Workout…maybe once or twice a week.

Things I do in quarantine (coping):

• Workout 1-3 times a week in March/April, 4-5 times a week through May and the start of June
• Meal plan for 5 meals, shop for them, and then utilize like 3 of them
• Go on a lot of walks
• Hang out with the kiddos
• Try to find reasons to leave the house…..any reason to leave the house

How I cope:

• Zoom calls – virtual backgrounds are my jam whilst participating in a team happy hour
• Drive by’s! We’ve visited several family members and stood on sidewalks and driveways to wave and yell hi and just have a few minutes of socially distant love
• Marco Polo (new to me app, I like it!)
• Trunk hangouts (I get together monthly with a group of friends COVID or not, and when we were SUPPOSED to be at the Mariners game last month, we were sitting in our trunks talking and eating in a parking lot a few buildings away from the field hospital for COVID patients who cant quarantine at home for any reason…I used to play soccer where that hospital now sits)

Some days, I cope well. I’m a Pinterest mom who makes a fun craft or plans well for an upcoming birthday or who bakes a loaf of bread. Other days, I am not getting out of leggings, doing less than 2,000 steps, and just waiting until bedtime so I can have a glass of wine. There are days that have tears, and some with laughs. Its all a weird balance. To say these are hard, trying times is like saying water is wet. That sunshine is warm. That the Mariners suck. We all get it. This is ROUGH.

But let me tie this back to me because….it’s my blog.

I have days where anxiety hits me out of no where – and I am just an internal mess. It’s hard, because I can’t let my kids see it, and because I want to make sure I am focusing on improving my brain, not settling into it. A positive that did come out of one fairly horrific stretch of anxiety was that I had a breakthrough! Something that had been subconscious for so long became conscious, I was able to vocalize it and talk about it and truly realize a fear I had been unknowingly coping with. While it certainly didn’t fix everything, it was one really noticeable positive that has come from all this time at home with my thoughts.

Back when I was in the WORST of my depression, almost 15 years ago (wow now I feel old), things felt bleak. It was dark. It was never ending, hopeless. Dragging on forever, I felt I’d never get better.

And then it did.

It wasn’t in one day. There weren’t even any noticeable daily changes until one day I went “oh wow, everything has changed” — much like weight loss. You don’t notice that every day things change until one day your jeans are too big to wear in public.

This will be the same. The changes are already happening. Every day, something positive happens, may that be a downturn in daily deaths, or new cases, or more releases from the hospitals. I wish the media would focus on that, so the depression can begin to lift. And soon, the restrictions will start to (safely) lift. We will resume a life that involves people outside our homes. We will toast wine together where the glasses can clink and it isn’t over a meeting. My coworkers and I will eat our weights again at a Joey’s happy hour.

One day soon, my dear friends, the dawn will crack through the dark, and we will see each other again. The depression and panic and terror will lift. And like all trauma, it will leave a mark on each of us in different ways. We won’t forget, no way. But we won’t remember it as viscerally as we feel it now.

And that gives me hope.