Reset

Last weekend after a particularly difficult week at work I spent a lot of time journaling and processing and attempting a reset. During this past week of work my journal was by my side at all times and instead of tweeting or typing something in Slack, I wrote a lot in my journal.

This isn’t a new thing for me, I’ve done it before when taking long Twitter breaks, but I was reminded of it when someone else mentioned that they were typing into Notes on their phone rather than Twitter. And it’s a good practice for me, especially since I can take a long while to process things and writing helps me do so.

But I realized as the week went one how much I’m finding online communication difficult right now. There is so much judgment in the air, so many are quick to lay out blanket statements that definitively say what is right and what is wrong. I came to the conclusion yesterday that most folks truly are trying to do what they think is best. The amount of competing information is hard to wade through right now, there are so many articles that may say opposing things, and each of us is reading what we can and making decisions about how to move forward.

Today marks five weeks that my household has been social distancing. We’ve been to the grocery store twice and the post office once. We’re still taking walks outside and I’m going on runs. I’ve been ordering veggies and other local good things from a CSA that’s delivered right to our door. I’m cooking more than I ever have. And I’m attempting to take weekends as a time to step back from the world. As our weather improves, I’m spending time in the garden and on the patio.

This isn’t easy. I worry if I’ll have a job by the time this is over, will someone I love get sick, and how in the world will this ever end? But my reset this weekend is about being easy on myself and others during all of this. I don’t always succeed, this past week I had failures, but I’m trying my hardest to leave judgment to the side and remember that we’re all doing our best.