Moving On

Anyone else feel like they're on a hamster wheel right now?  Like you're working really hard to get somewhere but the scenery hasn't changed a bit? 

I remember talking to a friend via messenger back in March or April and talking about three months from that point and thinking this would all be over.  It's been almost 2 months since that future we were dreaming of came and went and there's no real end in sight without a vaccine that may or may not be available within the year, and even if it is available, to whom?  How safe?  How effective?  

In the meantime, we're all trying to fit ourselves into a new normal without really knowing what the new normal is yet.  Though we've all had our moments over the past several months, I think our nerves are fraying and the walls are wearing thin.  Despite the separation and isolation, we're really starting to see some people for who they really are.  We just aren't as polite as we should be because it's just really hard to deal with constantly trying strike a balance when the scales keep moving.

I think we'd all like to be able to move on with our lives, but it's difficult to know how to do that without knowing what the new normal is really going to look like.  Many of us had set the ball rolling on major life plans that had to be put on hold when the world shut down and it's still not clear if we can pick up where we left off or if we have to abandon that ship and start building a new one out of what materials we can find lying around.  

I'm being deliberately vague, but that's because every story is different and also because energy is scarce to lay it all out.  But we're all waiting and seeing.  For the border to open.  For a vaccine. For a bigger bubble.  To go back to work.  

There's nothing for it but to keep moving on, but it's hard when we don't know where.

Coming Up for Air

I quit my job last month.

One of them, anyway.  And started a new one.

The overwhelming atmosphere of the coronavirus pandemic for me, thus far, has been that I have to keep working.  I have to work just a little bit more.  Because if I don't work enough, people that are under my care will die.  At least that's what I think I was feeling when I look back.  When I was in it, I didn't really feel anything.

This job I quit has always been a little more than I bargained for.  I was never able to fully get on top of things, and always spent more time there than I had budgeted.  Then they had a COVID-19 outbreak and it felt like every minute that I wasn't working was time I wasn't spending getting calories and fluid into people who were too sick and weak to do it themselves. The worst (but maybe best) thing was that I wasn't able to actually be there because of provincial public health rules, so I felt like I was just guessing a lot of the time. I lost touch with a lot of things and people during those months.

Then this windfall job fell in my lap.  I had applied for it months ago and not heard anything so I wrote it off.  Even after I was interviewed over the phone, I had no inkling as to whether I had got the job or not.  Anyway, it's mine now, and I left my time-suck position with some degree of relief and a significant amount of guilty feelings.  But then, I had to train my replacement, orientate at the new job full time on weekdays, and somehow complete my other contract obligatons on evenings and weekends (which, thankfully, the privelege of working remotely allowed me to do).  It was like running a marathon only to realize at the finish line that there's a pack of wolves behind you and safety is another 3 miles away.

The new job: it is not a dream job.  No guaranteed hours and a pretty big cut to my hourly wage.  But it has potential to grow into more.  And right now it comes with something I've felt like I haven't had in months...maybe even years.  Time.  

For the first time in I-don't-know-how-long I don't feel like every day is a race to cram in as many things as possible and hope I don't miss anything or have to delay anything important because there were too many important things.  It feels like I've been holding my breath for a year and I'm finally breathing again.