Let me start off with a huge disclaimer, I’m blessed to have not lost a loved one to COVID. Being from New York City, I know many that have and I can’t truly wrap my mind around their loss. Saying goodbye under that circumstance is bitter in a way that I don’t want to imagine too deeply. Modern medicine affords us the luxury of knowing what our odds are in fighting disease, in planning out a course of treatment, and knowing that we are likely to receive sound emergency treatment should we need it. COVID unraveled a lot of that. It made those givens actually questionable.
With that being said, I want to convey the aspects of quarantine I enjoyed and why. Because yes, I did gain from it. I think there are others who feel like me out there, but are shy to say because COVID was so horrible in so many ways. It’s pretentious to be the one shouting out “Actually, it’s not all bad,” when there are millions of people who have suffered heavily: the undocumented who do not qualify for government aid, parents who somehow are expected to homeschool while working remotely, families put in danger from domestic violence, kids that just can’t learn being in front of a screen, alone, for hours on end. I hope my intention isn’t read as brushing over these stories. My hope is to talk about how this experience finally allowed me to pause and learn things about myself I would have otherwise never had known, ever.
When March 2020 came along I finally decided to pay attention to the news. For the last few weeks I had seen various stories about a virus rapidly spreading in China. CNN played videos showing cruise ships stuck floating in the ocean, unable to let off passengers, because of confirmed coronavirus cases onboard. At that point, I didn’t want to pay attention. In 2014 I had totally freaked out about Ebola. I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole again, so I decided to not allow myself to get sucked into the 24/7 news cycle. Finally though, it was March in New York City and I had no choice. I paid attention. I remember reading one article that was pretty thorough in explaining what the virus was, its symptoms, and why it was spreading at a pace far more problematic than SARS or other comparable viruses. After that reading it was pretty clear that shit was going to hit the fan relatively soon.
Fast forward to end of March in New York City and, yes, life was turned upside down. My job abruptly moved to full time remote work. I had less than one day to pack up my personal essentials from my desk and bring them home. We still didn’t know whether we should or shouldn’t wear masks. You still didn’t know how to differentiate between the common cold or flu and COVID. You couldn’t find testing. You were actively told by the local government to not leave home and to not seek medical care if you are sick, unless you couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t find Lysol. I was washing every fruit and vegetable I bought with soap and water. (Big shoutout to Vaseline for nourishing my cracked, dried out, and very clean hands.)
While all that chaos was happening on the outside, inside my apartment I was safe. I created a routine for myself that was a good blend of productive and restful. I would wake up anywhere between an hour to 45 minutes before work, make myself a deliciously rich Greek coffee, put on a piece of clothing as to be presentable on Zoom, and then float for the remainder of the day between calls, Zooms, and a healthy amount of down time. The key within this routine was down time. I had more of it now, than I’ve had since, well, ever.
When I went to work regularly, in-person, any down time was filled with social chatter amongst coworkers, scrolling through social media, or catching up on errands: my health insurance billed me for a service they should have covered, I never received a package Amazon has marked delivered, I need to renew my dad’s taxi license even though its expiration is more than a month out because he gets nervous about any little thing that involves the notoriously unforgiving New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission.
Working from home, I still had these errands, but they didn’t fill my entire margin. It’s because my margins became wider. I worked faster from home. I was less distracted. I was able to drill down into whatever I was doing and just get it done. Less meetings, less interruptions, created more margin. Yes, many have had the exact opposite experience. They are Zoomed in for practically every half hour block of their day. I feel for you. I would hate that too. Thankfully though, I just didn’t have that.
During my margins I essentially did what my body wanted in that moment. If I wanted to pull up my chair to the window, breathe, and listen to the outside, I did it. If I wanted to pause to journal, I did. If I wanted to pop in a load of laundry, I did that too. If I wanted to run to the deli across the street or to the supermarket two blocks down, that was fine. (New York, I love you forever and always. Only you made that possible.) Then, on days were Zoom meetings weren’t packed in, taking a longer walk while being available by phone and email was perfectly fine.
Yes, my experience when COVID struck the most violently was unique. I still had a job. I had a healthy work-life balance. And I was in the comfort of my home, not worried about contracting a deadly virus. I’m deeply thankful that I had this because I unlearned things about myself that I thought were as given as my name. I thought I was the opposite of a homebody. I thought I needed distraction or activity in order to feel full. I thought waking up without having to go to an office would make me listless or make my mind wander into anxious places. But, the opposite actually happened.
I felt full. I felt like the slowed down pace finally allowed me to not race through tasks, but to just do them mindfully. Life happened on its own, instead of me constantly pressing it to perform. And, of course, the liberty of being able to walk outside and enjoy the sun in the middle of the day on a Wednesday without giving explanation or having that hour accounted for in the workplace context was, well, extremely freeing. I felt strangely human in a way that I hadn’t felt in a while.
Quarantine slowed down my life significantly. In that slowing down I gained back my personhood. I came to understand what made me happy and what didn’t, what my real productivity thresholds were, and which activities gave me a sense of true peace, contentment, and happiness. If COVID didn’t stop the world in its tracks, I would have never learned any of this.
I would have continued down the same path: believing I was inherently a workaholic that felt most valued when I received a thumbs up from the outside world. I would have never stopped to reassess. Stopping wasn’t ever an option. Coming from an immigrant household, you’re not raised with the mentality that it’s okay to pause (this can be a much larger discussion for a later post). You’re raised on the notion that you have to do better than your parents because they’re out there working like a donkey for your sake. There is no room for pause in that mindset.
So, yes, quarantine was immensely rewarding. I realize not many others have had that, but for me, it showed that my life is more than my work, that not waiting for the weekend made Monday through Friday a lot better. The question is how to replicate this moving forward, so that we don’t just retreat into the pre-COVID status quo, and to replicate it for more people.
My mind is still chewing on that thought. So, I have don’t have a full answer. It could be that “office” jobs should in fact be fully remote, or at least half. Or, the problem could be the number of hours we’re expected to log, rather than where those hours are performed. If your job demands a 60 hour work week, it’s likely you’d be unhappy no matter where you’re putting in that time from. It could even be that the instantaneous results that email, Slack, text, and other mediums make possible are at the core of what’s corroding our work-life balance. There’s lots of blame to go around when we put American work culture on trial.
For now, I wonder how many others feel similarly. How many others realized how introverted they are, are happy to know it, and finally have that part of themselves figured out? How many others oddly miss quarantine?
