Life in Quarantine: Our New Normal

Without a doubt, this has been one of the most trying times of my life. While I’ve faced my fair share of adversity, Coronavirus has been a whole new level of testing my patience, motivation, integrity and values. In a few of my different posts, I’ve talked about how the combination of the pandemic mixed with losing soccer in the same year was a tough pill to swallow and left me feeling like I didn’t have a purpose. From then to now, I’ve come a long way to be the person writing these blog posts.

Today, I’m going to share with you what I felt at the lowest and what worked for me to get out of that headspace. What worked for me might not work for you, but that doesn’t mean you should give up trying. If COVID and its restrictions has you at your lowest point, there are resources and if you need help, reach out to those you trust.

Disclaimer: My family and I are engaging in extreme social distancing in an attempt to keep my grandmother safe, as she’s got basically every health risk in the book. We haven’t seen those outside our family except for neighbors from a distance and work hard to mitigate the risk whenever possible. Despite whether you believe in wearing masks or even if COVID-19 and its dangers are real, you can hopefully understand that my family is not willing to risk my grandmother’s life regardless.

Making Sure My Days Were Scheduled:  

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t give into feelings of being low for a while at the beginning of quarantine (March-May). I would get up at 10:30 every morning, eat my feelings, wouldn’t work out, wouldn’t leave the house, would nap, and stopped reaching out to friends as much. I got to a point where I realized I had to change, but wasn’t sure where to start.

While I was initially working at my regular summer job (Vineyard Vines, I love you), I decided to stop due the risk of COVID to my family and I. Around the same time, my internship from the previous semester turned into a virtual job and I became the official business developer for Mental Fitness, LLC. My boss, Steve Wize, has an awesome company and if you’re looking for forward-thinking therapists in the Cranberry Township area in PA, Mental Fitness is the place for you (plus, we recently hired a Mental Fitness student-athlete coach!!). Getting to work every day, even if it was only for a few hours, gave me something to look forward to. For the first time in my life, I didn’t procrastinate at all because I was so happy to finally have something to do.

A few weeks later, my neighbor reached out and asked if I would give her boys socially distant soccer lessons once a week. The combination of getting to kick around again mixed with seeing people I don’t live with made it one of my favorite times of the week and again, added more structure to my days. Those boys have helped me stay sane at a time when I’m unable to see anyone else. On a sidenote, if you’re in the area and you want socially distanced soccer lessons, you know where to find me.

Routine, Routine, Routine:

A few hours of every day were carved out for work now, but that still left me with hours to myself, especially with my parents working and my sister dealing with her own quarantine life battles. I wish I could say that once I started doing work again, everything was better, but it wasn’t. I knew I still needed more structure, but those changes had to start small. This is going to sound incredibly cliché, but I started by making my bed every morning. For those of you that know me, I take great pride in my room being clean and during this time it was a perfect representation of how I felt: a mess. It was a small goal and I didn’t get it done every morning, but I decided it was important and eventually made it happen.

One of my Seacoast coaches, Chris Scott, told me something once that has stuck with me forever and I’ve passed it onto other teammates and friends when they’re struggling. My team was playing a game on field 4 at the Seacoast Complex in Epping, NH and we were sucking. At halftime, Chris told us that we were all trying to do too much and that when everything is going wrong, focus on the small things and try to do one thing right. It might be just completing a pass or creating the right movement off the ball, but that once you do that, you can build from there. If you keep trying to do too much at once, you’re going to continue to fail. While he was specifically telling us that we had to get our shit together for that game, it’s a message that I’ve taken with me and applied to all facets of my life.

So, building from that small success of making my bed every morning, I began doing something I normally did during the school year: I made lists. Anything I had to do in a day went on that list. I would even write something I’d already done so I could cross something off – don’t judge, you know you’ve done this too. These lists allowed me to physically see what I had to get done, which made it harder to ignore. All of sudden, my days were so much more productive, and I was ending my day feeling like I had actually accomplished something. After days and weeks and months of monotony, it was refreshing to feel like I wasn’t wasting time anymore.

Physical Activity:

One of the things that often made my list was working out. One of the things that often didn’t get crossed out was working out. There were good days when I was motivated to sweat and work hard, and others when I missed my teammates and just didn’t see the point. I would mentally punish myself when I missed a workout (which made me feel even worse and made me less excited to do it later). I’ve now learned to roll with my own resistance (thank you, Steve Wize) and now try to just be active every day. That looks like a lot of different things: tennis, running with or walking my dog, juggling in my driveway, or hiking with my family on the weekends. At a time when a lot of different things were feeling bad, I needed my physical activity to feel good.

Making My Space Mine:

If you’ve moved back home during this time, you know the struggle of living with your parents again after living in an apartment at school. Even though I have my own room, it had become more of a transitional space since college started and less of a permanent one (much to my Mom’s dismay). Since I had (and have) no idea how long I’m going to be here, I knew that I needed to make my space feel good. I recruited my dad to help me hang things up, I got rid of a lot of stuff, and I invested in a new desk (you’ll be the first to see it when it gets here). This has had a profound impact on my mood and has given me a space in my home that is mine and reflects who I am now.  

Taking Advantage of the Remaining Norms:

COVID has altered pretty much everything we do and very few things remain unchanged. That means my list of norms is super small and made up of super mundane things. It hasn’t mattered that there’s a global pandemic, my parents still make us clean the house once a week like I have since I was old enough to learn how to vacuum and clean toilets. It’s not fun, it’s not inspiring, but it hasn’t changed. My family continues to sit and eat dinner together around the same time every night. My dogs are still stoked when we walk through the front door. I’m conflicted about this one, but the NFL is back. I feel terrible that we’re exposing the players and their families to COVID for our entertainment, but being able to watch the Pats on Sundays has been so awesome.

Looking Forward but Not Too Far Ahead:

We all want this pandemic shit to end. We all want life to go back to normal. We were all frustrated when it wasn’t over after the first lockdown and as we’ve started hearing predictions about vaccine distribution, we’re even more disappointed. I finally realized that looking forward to the end of the pandemic was unrealistic and likely to send me spiraling when the date I expect to stop wearing a mask comes and goes.

Instead, I’ve focused on closer, exciting dates. On October 9^th, the Haunting of Bly Manor comes out, which I plan to watch virtually with Brooke and Shannon and whoever else wants to join. October 31^st is both Halloween and my sister’s birthday. Thanksgiving. My new desk is supposed to arrive at the end of November. My classes for my new master’s program start on December 14^th. Christmas! Even something as small as ordering a new extension cord from Amazon and looking forward to it arriving in 2 days has kept me powering forward. When the future is largely unknown, try focusing on the things you can count on, big or small.  

Being Grateful

This one took a long time of faking it until I made it before I embodied this. I would hear my mom saying how thankful she was for this time because the four of us get to live together again in a way that might never had happened due to me moving out or Parker (my sister) going to college. When I was finally able to appreciate that instead of just agreeing without believing it, I was able to gain a new perspective and be thankful. I’m not saying it was easy and I’m not saying that I’m no longer frustrated with my circumstances, but I’ve learned to find the positives amongst the negatives. Dogs are definitely a positive.

You might be at school, contained to your apartment, forced to go through frustratingly altered practices and workouts, but find the things that you’re grateful for. It will take some of your focus from those overbearing negative realities and remind you that you’re still lucky about something. Maybe it’s just that you get some independence from your family since you get to live in your own apartment. Maybe it’s getting to continue to learn about something you’re passionate about, or that you still get to see your teammates and friends. There’s something there. Find it. Hold onto it.

This website or rather you, the reader, has helped me stay on track during those days that might be a little lower than others. Those of you that have reached out connecting with the shared thoughts, feelings, or experiences have helped me persevere when I’ve got writer’s block or just don’t have the motivation to keep writing. Life has challenged us in completely new ways since March and will continue to, especially as cases go up across the country, flu season approaches and our favorite, seasonal affective disorder, starts to take hold as the days get shorter and darker. If you want to commiserate or share your challenges or moments of clarity, don’t be afraid to reach out.

If you or someone else is considering suicide and needs resources, they can be found at suicidepreventionlifeline.org