If you’re like me, you have gone through the seven stages of grief. Shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing, and finally acceptance. Currently, I’m two months being shut in my parent’s home in Western Kentucky and finally have come to a more doable lifestyle.
Of course, in the beginning, I was sleeping and sleeping and sleeping, thinking I was catching up on sleep, making it acceptable. While in the back of my head I remembered that no one looks back on their life and remembers all the nights they got plenty of sleep. This was my depression stage. I kinda skipped, most of the stages and went straight to this one.
My sleep schedule evolved to where I was living like a rock star. Staying up sometimes until five or six in the morning and sleeping until soundcheck, (i.e. lunch). I have been used to this schedule before, but at that time I had a job and woke up in a different state every day, (I was a roadie).
I had a trip planned for Europe, my first adventure outside the United States. Something I’ve been looking forward to for months. Something I invested time and money in, I even got a visa for Russia. So, of course, every notification I received was about my flights, reservations, or events planned were canceled, and consistently being removed from my calendar.
I got myself out of that by doing projects. Organizing and cleaning my parent’s home.
Well, after a few projects my parents weren’t exactly thrilled with all the radical changes and my new system of how organizing things came to be. When you live your life in a certain way for so long, you tend to not like it when someone comes in and mixes it up. So I stopped.
This is where the depression sank in again, but not as much as last time. I had friends who gave me new projects. And here comes why being in quarantine has actually been a good thing:
- I have completed challenges and started new ones
In an effort to stay active in global quarantine, my friends and I started a yoga and ab challenge. I had printed out a calendar so I can observe my progress. Having that accountability with your friends, one of whom I only know through this challenge, has helped me keep moving and reflect on our days of accomplishments. Now that it has been past thirty days of moving and grooving, I have that habit to exercise, but now because of my own self-motivation.
My new friend has become a good friend, she has been invited to my wedding. I have yet to meet her in person.
With completing a yoga and ab challenge, we have started a new yoga challenge and have added, don’t laugh, a boost your butt and leg challenge.
2. I’ve experimented with how to manage my time
This one took a few weeks to learn how my quarantine self had to manage time. I was no longer traveling, no longer going to meetings at coffee shops. No longer dealing with delayed and canceled flights or moving over time zones. I had to adjust to staying put, and be okay with it.
I started by putting everything I wanted to accomplish in my digital calendar. I got the idea from a YouTuber saying this was how he managed his time, get a notification -> do the thing. And let’s face it, we have our phones on us 24/7 so we can bet our life on getting a notification.
Yeah, this didn’t work for me. After a day the notifications became irritating, and I have a physical planner anyway. I prefer to write things down and mark them with stickers, highlighters, washi tape, and colored pens. Hey, if you know you know.
So I went back to what I knew. I went into my planner and scheduled out everything to the hour and minute. Writing out the schedule was so much fun, but ineffective at this current point in time.
I tried again by looking at how I marked my calendar every day, a checklist. Satisfyingly marking your accomplishments with one or two strokes. This got me going. I had a goal of marking two to four of the goals a day. Goals such as my language studies, reading, writing (blogs like this), exercise, work (sometimes it happens), a project, or a daily chore (I’ll post more about this later).
After creating these daily goals, I was able to keep track and mark what I had done for the day. Before I mark my accomplishments, typically I’ll have Heather Small in the background of my mind singing “What have you done today to make you feel proud.”
3. Working on my Trilingual-ness
In 2007 my sister adopted her sons from Russia, to make them feel more comfortable, my parents and I learned Russian. Russian is my second language, and over the years as languages do when out of practice, you lose it.
In 2015 I began studying German. My family has close family friends that live in Frankfurt and Stuttgart, and I wanted to be able to visit and speak German with them. German is my fourth language. Again, out of practice and studies means you lose it.
I studied French during high school, but let’s not get into that right now. I’ll come back later, I promise.
I began brushing up on my Russian when my fiancé moved to Kaliningrad, we have been trying our best at learning the language together since.
Since I already had a Russian subscription through Babbel, I added German and began studying Russian and German at the same time.
Well let me tell you, I love it. I’ve been looking at blogs, tv shows, and movies in Russian or German to help me retain some of it. As of today, I have completed Newcomer Courses 1 and 2 in both languages. I’m now on week three. More updates as this continues.
4. I have new running shoes
In high school, I found something I love to do: Running. I’ve run a few 5Ks since 2009, and my admiration for it has only gotten bigger. In the past few years, I have become attached to a particular brand for my running or hiking needs: Merrell. And by golly I love them.
During the quarantine I thought it would be a perfect time to start running again, my running shoes at the time has run so many miles and gone with me on quite a number of hikes, that I ran the miles on them and needed new ones. So, I found the perfect pair.
The Banshee X Trail Sisters, I saw them and fell in love with the colorful Colorado design and quotes printed along the sides and near the toes. I got myself a discount and ordered the same size I’ve had with this shoe company for years. They come in the mail one week later, they were too big.
Did a return, the same thing happened. I did two exchanges but my eagerness to go running grew. Once I got them and broke them in, I ran to a few EPs of Glowing House and felt out of shape and amazing.
5. I finished reading books
I don’t know about you, but I have the most unfortunate habit of starting books and never finishing them. Reading multiple books at one time is not advised unless you do actually finish reading them.
My fiancé gave me his copy of How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie, I’m almost done reading it. Should happen in the next day or so. With this book, I’ve finished reading The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared, a fantastic novel written by Jonas Jonasson.
Finishing books is just a small accomplishment I wanted to add. It’s fun becoming a bookworm again, namely because I have more time.
6. My friends and I have a podcast now
My goodness after being apart from each other and causally joking about recording our conversations, two of my closest friends and I have started a podcast for fun. We are called Etc. Etc. and can be found wherever you listen to your podcasts. Check us out.
Please don’t come and expect anything other than, we are three friends having some girl talk for fun. We are not doing so to be the next greatest podcast of all time, that’s just silly. But if you know us, you might find it funny, interesting, and helpful to distract you from our stay at home and never leave -mindset.
I have been in quarantine now for four weeks, and three days. I truly hope some of what I’ve discovered during this time inspires and helps you to find your new normal.
Please, please, please let me know if you have any connections or suggestions with how you’ve kept yourself sane. I’d love to hear about it!
Take care of yourself, now’s the time. Don’t wait for tomorrow.
Cheers.
Living Noteworthy 