“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine,” we used to sing, back in the early Nineties. Everyone in Generation X knew this was coming, and that’s why we spent so much time cooped up in our rooms.
We had no idea how great things would be when we would find ourselves doing it all over again at some near-future point. When we were young, we had to pay $16 for an album, or $1.99 for a cassette single, or try to record stuff off the radio. There was none of this free streaming on demand business. We had to go to the video rental store if we wanted to watch a movie or an old TV show - assuming they were available - and if someone else was watching it, we had to wait until next time. WE HAD NO INTERNET If we wanted to use the phone, we had to do it in the living room or the kitchen, where the entire family could overhear us and would often chime in on the conversation. Nobody could tell who was calling, so anyone might answer the phone. I recall an old roommate telling me, two days after the fact, that “some lady” had called for me... about a job posting... Nobody had seen grocery delivery since, like, the Fifties. The only hot food you could really get delivered was pizza. Avocados were fairly expensive. If you ordered any kind of “stuff,” like from the Sears catalogue, everyone knew it took 6-8 weeks for delivery. Okay, I hope I can get away with saying what I’m going to say next, because I’m a COVID-19 survivor, and I can claim that it seems to have warped my brain a bit. But... If this is The End of the World as We Know It, it... isn’t as bad as it could be? I’ve been comparing notes with some of my friends on what year would be the worst possible year in their life for COVID to happen. For me, it would have been either 1982 or 1999. Both of those were tough years anyway, but adding a pandemic to the scenario would have been devastating. So far, everyone I’ve talked to has agreed that this is not the worst possible year for their personal timeline that this could have happened. The year of the divorce. The year of the cancer diagnosis. The year one of their parents died. Their brokest year, the year they had their worst roommate. All sorts of times that would have been harder. Of course this isn’t going to feel true for everyone. A friend of mine lost her dad a couple months ago - he was a COVID doctor - and this is probably always going to be the worst year of her life. Which brings me to an interesting, though somewhat taboo, point. If this is the worst year of our lives...? Does that not imply that if we get past it, at some future point, everything else will be at least a bit of a relief? We’re at the midpoint of 2020, and this has been a truly rotten and terrible year in my life. I mean, bag it up and haul it out to the curb, right? Still, I have to acknowledge, I did not die of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in December. My husband did not lose sight in his eye in February. I did not die of COVID-19 - I didn’t even have to check in to the hospital, and what’s more, I didn’t even have to pay for any of my treatment other than $10 for antibiotics. This is the beginning of strategic adjustment, when we realize that hey, things could be worse. It wasn’t all that long ago (two months, but who’s counting) when I was still feeling actively surprised each morning. Hey, I woke up! I don’t know how I would know if I didn’t? But I did notice and I did feel a sense of awe and wonder. For at least 45 seconds, before the day’s symptoms kicked into gear. Nobody likes forced gratitude exercises, so let’s call it something else, something more hard-headed and practical. Let’s call it: inventory. What is working? What is not a dripping bag of situational trash? What resources do we have at our disposal? (Internet, literacy, running water and flush toilets, an education, pens with no caps, half a dozen USB cables, etc). Example: I started saving all our cardboard for my little parrot, and built her a fort to keep her busy while we’re on work calls. She won’t play with a $15 bird toy from the pet store but she will play in her fort all day. The other thing that is very important to consider is, what if dying is not the most pessimistic possible scenario? People forget to plan for this. What if we live through all this, and in fact we live to be 90 years old, and because we assumed we’d die tragically young we didn’t save any money? Or wear sunblock or take care of our teeth? For me, the most pessimistic baseline scenario is that I live to be 110 with no money, no house, no living family, and no friends. Whenever I think about future planning, whenever I’m at a choice point, I think of Very Old Me and what she would like me to do today. There are two things I’m doing during this TEOTWAWKI-lite scenario. I’m working in my dream field and packing away money like a trembling hamster. I’m also scheming on how I can get paid to go to grad school for free. I figure the young ones are going to be more likely to put their educations on hold, because paying full fare for virtual classes is a giant rip-off. I’ll be 45+, though, and I don’t mind, so there will be less competition for slots. I have all the focus and self-discipline that I never did 20 years ago, and in fact I doubt there are very many young people who could beat me in that department. This is TEOTWAWKI in lots of ways. A couple of them are probably good ways, and we won’t really have time to think about that until later. As long as I’m going to be cooped up indoors for what I assume will be the next three years, and I accept this depressing situation as my temporary reality, I am free to try to spin it in the most productive way that I can. Is this the end of my world in its previous phase? Is it then the beginning of a new phase? What a weird darn year, am I right? It went like this:
New Year’s Eve: ALL THE PLANS ALL THE THINGS First Quarter: Guess what I have COVID Second Quarter: Never mind, I got my dream job and I’m going to grad school Also it looks like I might get a birthday this year after all! I didn’t tell you all about this at the time, but the first weekend of January I put on an invitation-only workshop. I kept talking about “The Plot Twist.” I knew there was something coming, but I didn’t know what (obviously, or I would have tried to get to the ISS ASAP). O hai plot twist I’ve given up really trying to anticipate or plan in great specificity. It both does and does not work, as I’m sure you can all agree. What I said in my workshop was that the only way to make progress on the personal level is to somehow try to ignore the news and avoid letting current events mess with your plans. How possible is this, who knows, but I suppose we are all equally positioned to find out now. This year I decided to do both annual and decade goals. My husband and I stumbled across some papers with our ten-year financial goals, and we had the funny realization that we had hit them on schedule with about a +1% margin. We were talking about making new goals for the next ten years literally the week before shutdown... and then I got deathly ill, and then the dream job opened up while I was still dissolving into the sofa. We still need to get back on that. ...or, do we? We’re making more than we ever have, either of us, and we’re also spending very little since we’re trapped in our dinky apartment. We’re living on probably less than half our income, not sure since we haven’t bothered to crunch those numbers yet. Maybe we just shrug and keep saving for a while. This Is Strategy, my friends. Make a decision and GO. Refine as necessary. Personal: This year I chose body transformation as my major personal goal. Should have been more specific. Can I have POSITIVE and USEFUL body transformation this time?? Career: Learn to do webinars. Whoa, was this ever on the nose. It seems like all of a sudden my entire life is webinars. My team suddenly had to learn to do virtual speech contests with less than a week’s notice, and we led the district in that effort on the technical side. I have now used every available web conferencing platform, and I have seen and heard probably every possible glitch and snafu, including accidentally overhearing people yell at their kids or use a toilet. The next step would be to host my own online workshops. We’ll see. My “career” goal seems to have been somewhat co-opted by my sudden acquisition of a traditional full-time job. Physical: I survived COVID-19 and that’s about all I have on that subject right now. Home: Automation project. This has new urgency, since we both are WFH now and we do a 9/80 schedule. Monday through Thursday are long days with barely the time to work out. Doing laundry and getting groceries are more complicated now than they were before. Plus we have had to find room for our extra food supplies in the second-smallest kitchen we’ve ever had. Couples: Build an app together. Not sure if this will happen now that I’m working from home as well and my hubby just filed for his sixth patent. That’s okay, though, because our lives have changed so much during the pandemic. Last year, he was on travel over half the time and we hardly saw each other. Now we’re both working out of our living room and we’re together 99% of the time. App or no app, technically we *are* working together on a technology-related project, which is... our day jobs. Stop goal: Stop procrastinating on text messages and voicemail. I was doing all right until I got sick. Now I have a backlog of DMs. Still focusing on this and trying to reframe it. Lifestyle upgrades: Probably gum surgery. Let’s just say I am forming actual friendships with the people at my periodontist’s office. I have an appointment on 7/2 where I will find out the long-term strategy and next steps. Do the Obvious: Plan around constant travel? Well, maybe. Travel has resumed at our work. The change here is that I may be the actual person booking the tickets for my hubby’s work trips now, which is ironic. Ultralearning: Dutch language. I haven’t done much with this yet. I *have* suddenly found myself in the midst of an ultralearning situation, which is the fact that I need to get up to speed with several software titles for my new job. I am still very much in the “learn something new every day” phase. I’m also looking into grad school. If I want to learn Dutch, in other words, I’d better get started quickly. Quest: 50 for 50 ultramarathon! (2025). If this happens after COVID it will be a grade-A miracle. Wish: Publishing deal! I literally just took a publishing workshop. I think I’ve figured out a new angle for my book proposal post-COVID. This is going to be challenging to do, now that I am working full-time again, but I haven’t written it off. Wishes are for wishing. As for our ten-year goals, the financial aspects are probably more achievable than ever, but the travel/outdoor goals may be less so. We’ll just hope that these things can be back on the calendar within the decade. How are you doing on your own goals? Are there any areas of your life that are going unexpectedly well right now? Are you as glad as I am not to have died of COVID-19? 2020 Personal: Body transformation Career: Learn how to do webinars Physical: Weight at 125 lbs. Home: Automation project Couples: Build an app together Stop goal: Stop procrastinating on text messages and voicemail Lifestyle upgrades: Probably gum surgery Do the Obvious: Plan around constant travel Ultralearning: Dutch language Quest: 50 for 50 ultramarathon! (2025) Wish: Publishing deal! 2030 - Ten Year Goals and Resolutions Personal: Silver Fox project Career: Published author Physical: 50 for 50 ultramarathon! Home: Buy a house to live in Couples: Camping, hiking, backpacking, and bicycling together Stop goal: Stop procrastinating in general Lifestyle upgrades: A garden Do the Obvious: Plan around constant travel Ultralearning: Write screenplays Quest: Visit Antarctica Wish: Millionaires! |
AuthorI've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years. I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago. This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesArchives
January 2022
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