Surviving Emotionally during Pandemic

How are you today? 

How are you dealing with the situation? 

And no - I am not asking about how your city, neighborhood, society, school is handling the on-going crisis. The numbers keep increasing at some places and there's not much we can do except mind our own business and be extremely careful of not becoming a negative statistic ourselves. 

I want to know how many of us ask each other and our own selves - 

"How are you?" and 

"How am I dealing with the side-effects of the pandemic?"

While chatting with my girl friend gang I realized I am not the only 1 who looks forward to the night time peace and quiet these days. We all have our own ways of snooping around and squeezing some 'ME Time' for ourselves. 

1 said she loves her clinic..Another said she misses her office..

Another 1 is leaning on to running everyday. My mom looks forward to her Online Yoga class where all she can think about is how further I can stretch and bend. Some days when I open my eyes that are already burning from lack of sleep - I look forward to the night time where everyone is ready to fall asleep and I can have utter silence. 

This all makes me think how much we crave those few moments of solitude and no-work, no-cooking, no-calls, no-supervision time! With husband - and often wife working from home and children attending online classes - the home is always bustling with different voices in the living/study room along with the tug of war of getting a decent WiFi connection. 

On top of that, if you don't have your reliable house help to help around with the daily monotonous chores like dishes and dusting - you just want to strangle the people responsible for this pandemic!! 

I was talking to N's teacher the other day and we both agreed on the fact that how children have taken up this social distance lifestyle and all the pros n cons of the same - time will only tell if there are any severe reactions later on. However, I feel children are more resilient than us. And they bounce back in the given situation with much more ease. But will we be able to do the same? 

All over the world, people are talking about the physical side-effects of Corona Virus. But have we started taking into account the emotional side-effects of the same yet? The brunt that we all are unanimously taking to deal with this situation 'Staying At Home'??

I bet the cost is higher than we can imagine. 

                                    

Don't take me wrong. I love my family. I love spending time with them. In fact the first few weeks of lockdown we had a gala time playing our favorite games, watching baby and old videos, doing the household chores together. But when the school routine kicks in and the office deadlines keep showing their heads... we all tend to sink deep down in our zones. And the lady of the house is often left to take care of the tedious chores. That's when it becomes extremely difficult to chart out time for MYSELF. To do something more than just mindlessly browsing social media or shopping websites. At times even stepping out for a small walk seems like a big agenda and has to be planned so no other routine gets

 disrupted. 

Here's what I do to keep my sanity  in these trying times - 

-Talk to my friends and family.. not chat - pick up the phone and call! 

-Binge watch my favourite series alone (ofcourse with the wireless headsets so husband's meetings are not intertwined with the ambulance noise on the TV)

-Try to talk with my sensitive 9 year old without teaching, advising, picking or yelling anything!!! (Trust me its not as easy as it sounds)

-Put my thoughts on my loyal laptop. - It's cathartic!

How about You - My friend?

What do you do keep your sanity?

How do you keep yourself going? 

If you have already figured out what helps - please share so it can help others. 

If not - I implore you to find those few things that will help you float in these nonsense waters. 

Let's not ignore our emotions in these trying times and not forget to ask ourselves and help our dears ask the same to themselves ...

-Mom Reflections