Moving Forward

I wanted to say something about how I’ve spent the last 30 days because a lot of people seem to be struggling with it. And look, others have it a lot harder than me. I’m still getting paid and I live in a middle class neighborhood with a yard and enough rooms in my house that everybody can go to their own space, shut the door, and not interact with anyone. That’s a commodity right now. I get that.

But based on what I see posted and re-posted to social media, I think some people are struggling with how to spend this much time in their homes. What’s worked best for me is putting my head down and pushing through one day at a time. It’s my work ethic mentality, this idea to just keep pushing forward. So here are a couple of ideas of ways to push through:

Binge-watching. That’s a good place to start. STOP DOING IT. Look, I know we all want to binge the new seasons of Schitt’s Creek and Ozark. Resist that temptation. Watch a little, then move on to something else. Over the past 30 days, I’ve finished watching Star Wars The Clone Wars, and now I’m almost halfway through Rebels. I don’t watch more than 4 or 5 episodes in a day. (Each are less than 30 minutes.) Usually, I watch 2 episodes, and that’s it. This gives me a long goal, and that’s one of the things that’s helping me to get through the weeks, not just the days. It helps to watch something good with lots of episodes. Netflix has six seasons of Community. The first five seasons have 20+ episodes each. The Office is 9 seasons long, and don’t forget there’s that Marvel Universe on Netflix and Disney+. If there’s a show you’ve never watched but always wanted to, now is the time to do it.Get a hobby. I’m a fiction writer when I’m not working for NASA. Stay-at-Home has been great for me. I’ve edited two of my books and I’m beginning writing a third. The daily task of writing a thousand words requires time and patience, two things which I can have in spades during these times. In addition, it technically costs me nothing but my laptop, so I like artistic hobbies for people who, like me, don’t have great amounts of cashflow right now.Learn a new skill. My wife is teaching my son cursive. I’ve found an app to teach sign language. I’m not very good at it, but the point is to build each day on what I learned the previous day. I’m not always great it signing or consistent with my education, but I’m gaining ground. It’s also part of a general theme to this year: if not now, when am I going to learn it?Exercise. Seriously, y’all. We gotta exercise. I mean, I was already putting on the pounds. I needed to find some way to account for the extra brownie/cookie/cake calories. I’ve used My Fitness Pal’s blogs and my Wii U to assist. I’ve seen fitness routines set to show-watching, if you want to combine some of these. I think in this new pandemic age, I’m actually losing weight. Which is not what I expected…Projects. I have an old freezer that went to pot. Over the past two weeks I’ve been getting it back into condition. I may not be successful, but my mind and body have been occupied on something that isn’t fussing over dinner, kids, or the news. It’s really helped me to clear my head. As a bonus, I’m using old rust removers and sponges to clean it out. So I didn’t need to go to the store, which was important to me. I really think the best way to beat this thing is to avoid unnecessary human interaction, and going to the hardware store for a side project doesn’t feels frivolous and a little fool-hardy right now. (Don’t quote me statistics – Never tell me the odds.)

So that’s it. Just some ideas. Maybe you’ve done these or you’ve tried something else. A lot of people are making masks and doing sidewalk chalk. I think those are great ideas. Do you have something quirky or different that you’re doing to pass the time? Let me know in the comments.