I was chatting with a co-worker this afternoon. Back in “normal” times I’d see her a couple times a week in the office, but in coronavirus times I haven’t seen her since mid-March. How strange is that?!
During today’s conversation, my co-worker expressed how done she is working from home, that she’s been hating working remotely and how she can’t wait to get back into the office every day. And I realized…I just don’t agree. And now I’m surprised, because I don’t remember just when everything changed for me.
I felt differently at the start of my self quarantine. I remember feeling lost working from home. It was weird not being in the office, not commuting into the city, not wearing a bra every day. And I felt like my scope of work had changed — not being able to see co-workers made me feel like I was working on this non-tropical island all by myself. All my work events had to be cancelled and I had no idea when I would be able to reschedule any thing ever again. I was spending all my days practically chained to my computer, hiding in my spare room while my husband worked at our kitchen table, trying to figure out how I separated Work Sheryl from Home Sheryl because there didn’t seem to be any damn difference between the two.
Then I guess that things just started getting better. I’m not sure how or why or even when. Maybe I started getting busier at work. Maybe it was when I started forcing myself to workout every day no matter how sluggish and uncoordinated I felt that day. Maybe it’s because I can actually pick up a brand new book from the library again (I might be hoarding library books, please don’t tell on me!). Maybe it was when my husband and I could finally go out for dinner again, while wearing real clothes and without dragging take out cartons back home with us to eat in our pajamas.
I honestly can’t pinpoint when it happened, but something did change for me. And that’s a good thing. And talking to my co-worker today just reinforced it for me — this has been a hard couple of months for everyone, but we are adaptable. We will get through this, I am sure of it!
Notes from a Self Quarantine 