I was made redundant on March 11, just before COVID19 went from hot topic to YOU ARE MY EVERYTHING.

The first thing a few of my network remarked to me when they found out was, “Well, it’s a good time to self-isolate!” and I appreciate the positive vibes. I have slowed down, and started to take notes again. Here are some thoughts, working out loud.

My (faux epidemiologist) guess is that this kind of fog will rear up again in the future; so these are future reference too…

Get in the zone / change lanes

A forced change of circumstances requires a counter-punch. I need to feel some control. I need to change my own circumstances, challenge my own assumptions. Four small, personal things I changed (there may be more on this journey):

• No TV before the kids go to bed. No laziness, no wallowing. There are a lot of great shows to catch up on, but they will be there tomorrow.  
• No alcohol until the next chapter begins. Usually, drinking a beer is a reward for small achievements – tidying the garage, playing a game of football. I want to make the achievement more meaningful. Test myself.
• No trips to the coffee shop. Cut out lazy costs. Dig out the cafetiere and the espresso. (Also helps with self-isolation).
• Get the treadmill up and running again. Create demands on my body and my mind (I hate running, so boring.) The garage is a hot mess. Some order needs to be instilled before the running begins.

You are not stuck in traffic. You are the traffic.

We are not a stressed out family by nature; we are ok observing the crowd rather than running with them, Lori especially. So the toilet paper hunt created some bemusement (and we had 2-3 weeks supply anyway.)

However, I suddenly developed an urge to visit supermarkets to check on their stock levels of various basics. I was relieved to see that produce was plentiful. If the vegetables are there, we will be healthy. But I followed the herd and began to obsess about toilet paper and gloves. I also grappled with the fact that I was part of the problem that would dissipate if I / we acted normally. But, pandemic!

Werk it.

I am job hunting at the single worst time IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Gotta focus. Set up the laptop on the dinner table and started working through the job boards. “Go to work everyday.”

A couple of jobs I had peripherally noted and thought interesting suddenly became VERY interesting. Dusted down the CV, got my documents in order. Became bamboozled by the “upload your CV and let our job board software massacre the words into our system.” It immediately looks like my current job is an online course I took at Darden Management School on Design Thinking 5 years ago. I’ll leave the painful manual editing of that for another day.

Keep calm and carry on.

Checked in with my aged mother in UK – she is of that annoying generation and mindset that nothing’s gonna slow her down. We agree that she will be more careful (she is high risk on every indicator) but carry on carrying on. My mum has died and been brought back to life on more than one occasion. She has experienced the calm white light of The Next World. She ain’t scared.

Nor am I, nor are we.

This Much We Know.