First, because I know you are all waiting breathlessly, Zippy the fish is still alive as of this writing. I’m still keeping a close eye on the ammonia levels, and changing out water a couple of times a day, but it’s fairly stable.
Second, I am deep cleaning my house. No, not because of COVID exposure–because it badly needs it. It has been bugging me for a while now, but I haven’t had the motivation to actually embark on what seemed an insurmountable project.
I am not the neatest person in the world. (My mother will snort diet Pepsi out her nose when reading that understatement.) I am MUCH neater than I was when I was younger, mostly out of necessity. (When you reach a certain age, having specific places for things cuts down on the “where-did-I-put-that” moments.) I keep up with the must-cleans—bathrooms, kitchen, laundry. You know. But the rest of my house can go a while between good scrubbings. We are far from filthy, but I will not be winning any Good Housekeeping awards. And with a child who somehow manages to leave a trail behind her everywhere she goes, it is a bit of a Sisyphean task to start with.
However, when properly motivated, I can get a lot done quickly. That motivation is usually in the form of a parental unit coming over. We are not doing a Thanksgiving gathering in the Year of COVID, but my mother-in-law will be coming up to stay with us until the New Year. (We are all quarantining for 14 days prior to her arrival.) Nothing like a visitor to make you see the dust on the unused surfaces and the stuff stashed in corners for you to sort through “later”. Well, later is now.
We got rid of several bags of stuff, with more to go. Rooms are neat, carpets are clean, surfaces are shiny. Did I get every nook and cranny? No. There’s always more to do. Every time you clean something, the thing next to it starts to look dirty. But it is miles ahead of where I was at the beginning of the week.
Decluttering and heavy cleaning has made me feel a bit better (psychologically—physically it has reminded me that I am approaching a certain milestone birthday). The one good thing about cleaning is that when you have finished a room, you have that instant gratification of a job well done. And you’d best take that gratification instantly, because the next minute someone tracks in a leaf particle or a dust bunny hops in or crumbs somehow magically appear.
I tackled this huge job by breaking it down into smaller jobs—one room a day. By making it manageable, I could break that mental barrier down and get started, get it done. I tend to do this with my writing, too. I tell myself to just do one chapter, whether it be drafting or editing. Makes it feel achievable. With the writing, I usually end up doing more than one chapter, once I start.
Not so much with the cleaning. 😉
Whatever task you are facing that seems huge this holiday season, break it into its component parts. Make each one manageable, and savor the victory of each piece completed. You’ll be done before you know it!
Happy New Year 2021 – CoronaLife Day 292
I think I speak for many people when I say there has never been a year I wanted to see the back of more than 2020. This year has lasted a decade, and I can’t wait to turn the page.
Having had a milestone birthday this year (thanks, 2020!), I am old enough to know that turning the calendar doesn’t magically make all our problems disappear. But it is a time to reset and take the lessons learned in the previous year and carry them forward.
So what have I learned in 2020? First, I learned that there are many things out of my control. This year was certainly a lesson in that, if nothing else. The coronavirus took any plans we had for this year and dumped them into the incinerator. The sphere of what I can actually control is a lot smaller than my ego would like to think it is.
Second, sometimes I have to just let things go. My anxiety disorder has been in overdrive this year, and that wreaks havoc on my writing. My creativity vanishes into the malaise. And I have to be okay with that, because there’s not much I can do about it. My creativity has been a roller coaster this year. I have days, even a week at a time, where the words come and I drive forward. Then a desert for weeks. I have had to learn to not beat myself up over that (a lesson I am still learning).
Third, I have had to learn to be less of an introvert. Wait, wait, wait, I hear you saying. You are stuck home, rarely going out, seeing nobody outside your family. How does that make you LESS of an introvert?
It is counter-intuitive, I grant you. I am an introvert’s introvert. I need alone time to recharge. And by alone time, I mean completely alone, no one else in the house. Not in another room, not on another floor, but not here AT ALL. Since March I have had both my daughter and my husband home 24/7. I love them dearly and I am so grateful we have the ability to be safe together. But I have had to get used to much less alone time (read: none), and figure out how to recharge anyway.
Fourth, it has highlighted many of the inequities that are baked into our country, and the desperate need to address them moving forward. I for one do not want to simply “go back to normal” because so much of what was normal was not working. This year that has shaken the world to the foundation has not merely exposed the cracks we have been papering over for decades, it wrenched those cracks wide open. We need to do better. Business as usual is no longer acceptable.
Finally, it has been a lesson in gratitude. I know, without a doubt, that my family has been incredibly lucky throughout this year. We have been able to work from home with no loss of income, and our immediate extended family have so far come through physically unscathed. For all the things we missed and were saddened to not have or do this year, we still have the people that we love, and that is everything.
I intend to take those lessons and go forward into 2021 knowing that we still have a long road ahead of us. None of the problems we face will vanish with the ball drop. But if we truly learn the lessons of 2020, we can make 2021 the beginning of something new, different, and better.
And by the end of the year, I might even get to be alone in the house again.
I wish all of you and your loved ones a healthy, happy, and much, much better 2021. Be safe, and have a Happy New Year.