What I’m Doing During Quarantine

I’ve never been more happy to be an introvert.

After living my entire life in a society that places value on extroversion and social interaction, I have finally found an advantage for my natural introversion. Don’t get me wrong, I do like people as a whole; I’m not anti-social, I just have to do those things in smaller doses to avoid social drain. That being said, this Social Distancing trend has been a godsend for all my people who now have an excuse to limit their time with others. Finally, We can stay at home on the weekends without any judgement.

Even as an introvert, staying home can be a challenge.

I’m not used to being home all day every day. As I’ve mentioned before, I am not anti-social. I like people, and I like going into an office every day. I do like to see my friends and go people watching on weekends. I like coming home to my quiet, empty house in the evenings and the weekends to unwind and recharge after expending my energy out and about. The problem is, without having a place to expend that energy sapped by being around others, I’m find myself restless. With my usual schedule up in smoke, I found a lot of time and energy I needed to burn off. Here are some things I’ve been doing during quarantine.

Things I’m doing during quarantine:

1. Catching up on reading: I’ve fallen behind my reading goals over the years. The demands of college and work took so much of my time and energy, I could barely finish 20 books a year. Now that I’m stuck indoors, I might as well read.
2. Making soap with my business partner: As you can imagine there has been a big demand for soap and hand sanitizer. While that is good for business, we are softhearted individuals and decided to cut our usual prices as low as we could afford (we do have bills to pay after-all) in order to fill the gap left my out-of-stock stores. Now that the rush is over, we are trying to re-stock our own supplies for the summer markets.
3. Watching a lot of Netflix and Hulu: I’m not proud of this one, but I’d be lying if I didn’t confess that my television has seen more use this week than it has in the last year. Shaving off the commute time for work, and the usual time I spend running around town on weekends has given me more “me” time. This “me” time has turned into “tv” time I am rightfully ashamed of.
4. Spring Cleaning: I am generally a clean person, but some chores have been falling behind. What’s a better time to deep clean the carpet, scrub the floors, and dust the baseboards than a spring quarantine? As the weather warms, my cat is shedding her winter coat. Now is as good a time as any to bring out the special attachments on the vacuum to pickup all the loose hairs she is letting loose around the apartment.
5. Writing: Once again, I am ashamed to admit that I have not been writing as often as I would like. The final shakes of the winter blues started to wear off just as the global panic of an impending pandemic fell into place. The results was chaos at work, re-arranged travel plans, hours in a workshop making, packaging, and selling soap, and little time to arrange my thoughts into coherent words. Now that things have settled down, I hope to use less of my free time on the aformentioned Netflix binges, and more time putting a pen to paper.
6. Crafting: You know all those projects you started and left unfinished? Now is as good a time as any to pick them back up. I have a few little clothing repairs, or small art projects I keep telling myself I’ll “finish when I have time”, but never find the time to do. Well, I have at least 1 more week of quarantine to go, assuming my state doesn’t extend the lock down. I have run out of excuses now.

It’s easy to see these days as an apocalypse or a vacation. We are constantly being fed half-truths, conflicting information, or misinformation by the media, and no one seems to know what’s happening anymore. A lot of people have been negatively impacted by this virus either directly (actually getting the virus) or indirectly (supply shortages, losing work, stuck in quarantine with people you hate, etc.) There are a lot of things going on that our out of our control, but there are still some things we can do. I decided to take control of what I can, and make the best of the situation.

Things are tough and a little scary, but sit tight for now. Like all things, this too will pass.