Skip to main content

Shipwrecked: 4) Create a Routine

You probably already have a pandemic/quarantine routine. But how is it working for you?

I had one. It was, more or less:

* Wake up before the alarm with my mind churning with all the thoughts I hadn't dealt with
* Get on Facebook and read articles about coronavirus
* Have coffee and read more articles
* Work work work
* Lunch: Grab something ridiculous from the refrigerator or pantry and take it back to my computer
* Work work work
* Gulp down dinner
* Work as if by my efforts, I could make coronavirus disappear
* Watch evening news dissection
* Toss and turn
* Have nightmares based on the evening news dissection

This really was not working for me. Duh! But my family members were more or less working on their own version of that routine. One of my teens had flipped her schedule completely, sleeping all day, and awake all night. This wasn't good for any of us.

Not all at once, but I am beginning to establish some routines that suit me better. Cocktail/Mocktail Time outside, dinner at the table.

What are the routines you have fallen into, and what are the routines that would make you happier and, dare I say, more peaceful?


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

We've Reached the "Tom Hanks Eating Raw Fish" Phase of the Pandemic

Last May, as it became apparent the covid-19 pandemic was not going to be a temporary affair, I wrote about the benefits of imagining you were shipwrecked on a deserted island.  Now, a year after we began hearing about the "novel coronovirus," I suspect that many of us have now entered the "Tom Hanks Eating Raw Fish" stage of the pandemic.  We've made the best of things. Rearranged home offices and homeschool desks. Got through the holidays, mustering as much joy as we could. There's a permanent hook or basket at the front door for our masks.  Most of us by now either know someone who died of covid, or are, at most, 2 degrees away. Our co-worker's husband's mother. Our friend's aunt. Or closer. We've grieved.  And now...we're just numb. We keep putting one foot in front of the other, because that's what we have to do. We eat, we drink, we sleep. We get our work done. We nag our kids to do school work.  But our affect is flat. Like Ha...

Me and My Collar

You may run into me on a Friday, in my neighborhood, so it's time I let you know what you might see. When I was doing my required unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), my supervisor suggested that any of us who came from traditions where a clerical collar was an option, take one "collar week," to see how we were treated, as opposed to wearing regular professional clothes. After a couple of days, I joked to the Catholic priest, "How do you manage the power?" In regular clothes, I would walk into a patient's room, and it would take about 5 or so minutes of introductions and pleasantries before we could really get down to talking about their feelings, their fears, the deep stuff. With most people, as soon as that clerical collar walked in the room, with me attached, they began pouring out all the heavy stuff they were carrying. I was riding the bus back and forth every day, and though not quite so dramatic, the collar effect was alive there, to...

Could You Send Her for the Ammunition?

Let me preface by saying I know that not all people are comfortable with military/war metaphors, so feel free to either find a metaphor that works for you, or skip this altogether. My dad, however, was a Korean war veteran who went to military college (that's what Texas A&M was in those days), originally stationed in artillery before being changed at the last minute to be a teacher in the corps of engineers. So some battle metaphors worked for him in explaining the world around him. His highest compliment about a person's character was an affirmative answer to "but could you send them for the ammunition?" The metaphor is this: you are in battle, and it's not looking good. You've got a partner with you, and y'all are running out of ammunition. If you send this person back to get more ammunition, will they return? Or will they promise to return, but then run the opposite direction, sacrificing you in the process? He and I would talk about this,...