What I’ve Learned About Myself During Quarantine

All this time at home could make anyone go a little stir-crazy. Fortunately, I’m an introvert, a homebody, and am perpetually looking for the ‘silver lining’ in any situation. So when it comes to the stay-at-home order that many of us remain on during this very unique time in life, I’ve been doing some recharging and thinking. This time closeted away at home has showed me a few things about my life that I may not have otherwise stopped to realize.

First of all, I am extremely fortunate. My husband and I both work for the same company. Our industry has been lucky enough to maintain during this time and we could not be more grateful to maintain our careers and support both our coworkers and our company’s customers during all of this. We have friends that are not in that situation and recognize how very differently our time could look if we were in the same industries that they are in. We feel privileged to be in a position to support others and could not be more grateful to be working for a company that supports the safety and financial security of it’s employees.

I think the biggest learning moment many of us have had is that we can and should slow down. From making decisions, to shopping, to loading up my calendar, there are a lot of areas of my life that could benefit from taking a deep breath. Just prior to beginning to stay home (Drew and I have been since March 12th), I was realizing that my anxiety was heading to breaking point. Understanding that I have a certain kind of anxiety, what triggers it, and when I’m feeling it become overwhelming has taken a long time to come to. Every so often I take a day to myself to hit my ‘reset button’ in a sense so that I don’t let myself become overtaken by those feelings. Mental health looks different for everyone and I do what I can and what feels best for me in those moments. A day to myself may mean knocking out a million things to make my life feel more put together, it may be getting a Starbucks and sitting on the couch watching YouTube videos and Netflix, or it may be a day walking around the West Bottoms; it’s whatever my mind and body are telling me they need. This time at home has afforded me a lot of clarity on how to format my life to (hopefully) make some positives changes when the stay-at-home has lifted.

One of the changes I have realized I will need to make is to my calendar. Gone are the days of packing it full of activities and events taking me from one place to the next and piling on that anxiety. I will be more deliberate in making plans and balancing it with the time I NEED at home recharging. ‘Quality over quantity’ will be the name of the game (likely in more than one area of life).

Finally, the time I have needs to be spent in making things what I want them to be. Basically, I need to MAKE TIME for what I want to succeed. For example, I have had my blog for over a year and have been focusing on consistently publishing my blog posts. Now, I need to actually invest the time and energy into everything else that can and should go into making my blog what I truly want it to be. I spent hours one day finding a new format, theme, and color scheme for my blog. I am so proud of the work I did that day! And what’s more, it renewed my passion for what I have in front of me with this blog! That is and always has been important to me, but with everything else going on in life, it gets pushed to the bottom of the list of the to-do list when there are other easier or ‘more important’ things. I was choosing not to put it in priority where I really wanted it. And F*$% it! I’m proud of what I do with this blog and the positive message I send out into the world so I am going to talk about it that way! PROUDLY.

Get ready for changes for the better all around because this time at home has been a great time to find myself and fall back in love with who I am. I hope it has been that for you too!