Today marks day 50 of official quarantine for us in Québec.
A little background: I live with my husband and our two teenage daughters (one is 13 and the other one will turn 15 in August); they go to two different schools because different programs so we need to deal with that even more now than in regular times. They fight a lot. One hates school and forces me to be the bad cop of the story. The other has been outside our home once in the past five weeks because she is too scared. My husband works from home, which is something I missed a lot since he started his new job last year. I work as a food prep in a sushi shop located in a supermarket nearby: my job is considered essential so I continue to go there 3-4 times a week even though my hours have been cut from the usual.
How are you personally coping with the anxiety surrounding the pandemic?
- Reading. A lot, actually… I have two public libraries where I usually go to, one in our hometown and the other in downtown Montréal. Of course, both are currently closed and I am now reading all the books that were in our house, abandoned. But I am very happy to also have the possibility to borrow e-books via my Kindle Unlimited subscription (you can borrow up to ten books at the same time). I read both paper books and on my iPad. It gives me an escape of sorts.
- Expressing daily gratitude. I don’t necessarily write it down but I make it a practice I do my best to stick to. Plus, I am a list maker. Even if it means mentally listing 3 or 5 things that bring some positive in my life that day. Being grateful is not ignoring things that are hurtful, but looking for things to appreciate. I am not putting my head in the sand (far from that).
- Making any type of creative activity. It’s hard for me to step into my Studio and do something, I won’t lie. I do try, but often go back upstairs having done nothing in there… So I find other ways to be creative: I cook from scratch for example. Cooking has always been my number one passion but I am even more in the kitchen now than pre-quarantine. Making our own break, baking at midnight with my daughter because neither of us can properly sleep.
- Learning something. I am revisiting classes I signed up for but done little to nothing about. I watch Youtube videos about subjects that intrigue me. I love learning, I talk with my BFF who is back at the university in France to study psychology so she shares some of the stuff I actually left behind 17 years ago.
- Spending quality times to loved ones. My daughters have a hard time following a proper sleep schedule: they sleep around 3 am and wake up way too late after. I spend almost every day with Mae; we play together on the Switch, we cook, we sometimes workout together… she is the scared one and refuses to leave the house even just for a walk.
►►► Wondering: would you like a “Day in the life” type of vlog in the near future?