It’s been a week that we have all been in the house together, and it’s going fairly well. We’re all adjusting. My friend Annie mentioned on Facebook that for her, this “social distancing” is more like “social amplification” because like me, she usually works from home in silence and solitude all day, and now there are people in her face all the time. I GET IT.

Sir Monkeypants and I are now sharing an office and it was very weird for me at first. We’re still trying to figure out who goes where when one of us has a call to take. Also we are circling around a potential open confrontation about who gets The Good Chair. As someone who works from home, I have been through several desk chairs that have all been rejected for various reasons and now I have one good chair and it is, technically, MY chair, but we shall see. I know Sir Monkeypants is eyeing it as he sits over there in The Chair That Won’t Hold Its Height, having abandoned The Chair That is Too Upright.

One plus of social isolation: the laundry has been much lighter. There are several pairs of PJs for each person and that is about it. I think the Captain is the only one of us who has managed to actually get dressed each day so far, although I have been trying to get out for a walk around lunchtime each day, so I have put on what I call “Technically Clothes” – sweatshirts and yoga pants that basically aren’t any different than my actual PJs except for the area of the store where I bought them. (Personal revelation: pretty much ALL of my wardrobe blurs the line between “clothes” and “pajamas,” meaning I am completely ready for an extended period of being a shut-in.)

On the down side: there are dishes everywhere, all the time. I am running the dishwasher at least once a day. I typically do the dishes just once per day, after dinner, and there are piles and piles. Cups, plates, all over, all the time. Is it too much to ask that everyone just eat out of the box/can/cookie container while standing over the sink like normal people would? SHEESH.

Overall, I think we are starting to work towards a new normal. Today is the first day that I really felt like I could calm down and ease into the way things are, right now. We all have our new daily routines and we’re working them out and moving forward, and so far no one has had a big blow up (YET – we’ll see about the chair situation). So that’s good.

I think my mental health is going to be dependent on two things going forward:

One, minimizing my exposure to social media. I’ve been obsessing too much on Facebook, looking for answers and reassurance when there aren’t any. My friend Nicole said a wise thing on Facebook yesterday – that we will all hear the news eventually, we will get the important gist of things, and there is no need to pounce on every iota of news as soon as it comes out. She is right, and I need to spend more time reading novels and doing puzzles.

Two, remembering that we are all in this together. While on one of our lunchtime walks earlier this week, I was spiraling into a tornado of stress, venting to my husband about lost school terms and lost vacations and lost university plans. And he reminded me that EVERYONE is in the same boat; that this is not a problem that WE have to figure out on our own. The schools and universities and cruise lines will have to make some wide sweeping decisions, and set up new rules and plans, and they will let us know what they decide, and then we will do that. Our kids are not the only ones dealing with crisis, it’s not like we have to find a workaround that works only for them – someone higher up than us needs to find an answer that will work for ALL OF US.

And that was very helpful.

So hope you are doing well, and staying away from too much news, and doing some fantastic puzzles, and scoring The Good Chair for your own personal use.