Participating in the UConn Pandemic Journaling Project

I heard about a project at the University of Connecticut to invite people to write and include journal entries of their life during the pandemic.  I heard about the project on "The Takeaway," an NPR news show.  

I decided to join and participate.  Every week they send a question for you to answer in your journal.  When you sign up, they ask you a standard question as well as your first week's question.  I've decided to repost my entries on my own blog.  To find out about the project and see other people's entries you can follow this link: 

https://www.pandemicjournalingproject.org/archive/featured

Sign-up Question: How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts. This is a space to share what's on your mind, and save it for the future.

When I look at my situation objectively, I have to admit that I have been spared the worst impacts of the virus.  

Because of work I was doing with our company’s West Regional Order Entry department before the virus hit to develop a paperless system of taking and processing client orders, we were able to work remotely once the first stay at home orders were announced.  This allowed our region, the busiest in the country for our division, to continue working even though no one was in the office.  At a recent online town hall meeting, the president of our division cited our work in this regard as the reason the company could stay open for business.  If I had to choose one positive experience during the virus, it would have to be this.    

But it’s been hard.  The unit’s staff is about half the size it was last year, when we were in the midst of a hiring campaign.  I’ve seen a number of good people, good employees, and office-friends lose their jobs due to furloughs and layoffs because the volume of work went down or because they didn’t have the means to work remotely.  With each announcement of a staff reduction I couldn’t help but wonder if my time would be next and what I would do if that were to happen.  

My personal life has paralleled my work life.  Keeping my job has meant I’ve not had to worry about making rent, having food on the table, or paying bills.  Having most of my expenses reduced, such as not having to drive an hour each day into the office, has allowed me to put more money aside, pay off my car, increase my contributions to my retirement account, and making myself more financially secure as I’ve ever been as a result.  

But the strain, the worry, has been bad.  I liken it to being a character in a movie about a zombie apocalypse.  I stay in my safe-space, not going outside except when I have to go find food, avoiding everyone I see to avoid being infected.  I have not been able to travel at all during the past year, something I enjoy doing.  Not to see my family back east during holidays.  Not to go to a baseball game, the first year I’ve not seen at least one live ballgame in over a decade, since 2009.  I’ve not had a chance to meet anyone new, face to face, at all.  

It’s the sameness that is hard to take.  The feeling that every day is the same as the one before it.  I get up, do my morning routine, sit at my writing desk to work, exercise, eat, sleep, and repeat.  It feels like my life is fast forwarding because nothing is happening.  It feels like I’m missing opportunities to meet new people, find someone to love, experience something different.  This is what people in retirement or assisted living homes must feel like when they become too infirm to leave.  They sit there, watching the days go by, waiting for their lives to end.  It’s horrible.  At least they have the people that live at the home with them to keep them company, even if sitting at a safe distance.  Living alone, I don’t even have that.  

I’ve tried to fight this negativity.  Before the pandemic hit I was already in the practice of writing in a journal daily.  I’ve continued that practice and resurrected my desire to write and publish science fiction short-stories and novels.  I’ve focused on my health, walking 15,000 steps daily and using an app to count calories, and have lost about 20 pounds during the year and lowered my A-1C numbers to near normal levels (I have been diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes).  I use Zoom to meet with people online and practice Japanese, talking with people living in Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other parts of the United States.  Every day, since last March of 2020, I’ve ended my journal entry for the morning repeating part of the creed of Optimists International.

“I will be strong so nothing will disturb my Peace of Mind.  I will be as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am my own.  I will be too large for worry, too noble for anger, to strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.  I will create opportunities for making progress in life.”  

The last line, about making progress in life, is a line I added of my own.  Sometime during the summer, when I came to understand my fear that I was just waiting for time to pass, feeling unknown and unrealized opportunities flow by in a dark, unknown river of time, never to be seen or experienced again.  

This is what living under Covid is for me.  A constant struggle to resist the negativity and apprehension that it brings.  I am probably a much more positive person than I was before.  I just can’t tell because the bar of adverse circumstances is so much higher. 

This Week’s Question: Many of us are living with restrictions on movement and social contact.  Talk about any restrictions that have affected you and your ability to go about your life.

I recall a meme I saw online, on Twitter or Facebook, can’t remember which.  It went something like this.

“I stay at home, not seeing people, working, eating, sleeping, repeating.  Since the virus, it’s called ‘social distancing.’  Before the virus, I called it ‘my life.’”  

Because I’ve been able to keep my job and work, I’ve escaped the most severe impacts of the virus and the restrictions that have come with it.  I chuckled at the meme when I first saw it, because there was truth to it.  I live alone.  I’m not married.  Never have been.  No children.  My family all lives far from me in other states.  I would see them once a twice a year on holidays or vacation.  The initial impact on my daily life was minimal.  

Or so I thought.  Over time, I’ve become more aware of how important the ability to move about freely and be with others was to me.  

It started with eating out.  Every Friday, I would treat myself to a meal out.  It was often take-out.  I would sometimes go to a restaurant.  It was my reward for getting through the week “in one piece.”  

Then the restrictions came.  No more dining in.  Only take out.  Then some of my favorite restaurants closed down.  Which limited my choices even further.  Work arounds were found.  But it was less a reward and more of a chore.  Something I felt more obligated to continue doing because not doing it could mean others would lose their jobs.  

Same with the gym.  I used to go about three to four times a week.  I didn’t socialize much with others there.  In fact, before the virus, I would often wish that there were fewer people there so I could have more opportunity to use the machines I wanted.  First my gym closed down, then opened with restrictions, then closed again.  It’s been closed for months now.  I talk a walk past it every day, looking into the rows of machines and equipment no one is using.  I’d gladly wait in line now to use one of the machines just to be inside doing something for my health.  

For me, the virus’s impact on my life is to reduce it to its most basic form.  I live.  I work.  I eat.  I do what I can on my own to stay in shape.  But only that.  I’m glad to have that much, knowing that others have it worse.  I do want to have…. More.  At least the chance to do more if I wanted to.  

And I really, really want to have more chances to do more things now.