Anyway, go read it at Nature Futures.
It's only just occurred to me, writing this, how apt my story "The World in a Bottle" is for the times. I could easily be accused of writing a pandemic story - it's about someone trapped in a simulation, the bottle of the title - but it wasn't deliberate. The story was written in January 2020, just before the pandemic struck.
Anyway, go read it at Nature Futures. It's coming up on a year in lockdown now. At some point along the way I stopped waiting for things to go "back to normal" and just accepted that this is the new normal, and I've been happier since. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect to remain in lockdown forever (although we might, if the Tories keep bloody opening things early and causing cases to spike), but I don't think things will ever go back to the way they were before. At the very least I think masks will be around for a while, and possibly social distancing in public places since I suspect many people are going to discover an intense dislike of crowds going forward.
For me, accepting this as the new normal has meant some lifestyle changes. I learned to cut my own hair, and it's good enough to get me by since I hate having really long hair, although I haven't been brave enough to attempt my blue-purple dye job at home. I've bought a breadmaker since I'm sick of running out of bread at the weekends, and a step machine so I can get some exercise in. Overall we've got better about home cooking. Since our groceries arrive once a week and we can't just pop to the shop for when we run out of something or fancy dinner out, we're roasting up our leftover vegetables once a week and using them as a base for the next few days' meals. We're not being particularly adventurous, since cooking at the end of a working day is still a chore and not a pleasure, but we are eating better overall. Working from home has turned out to have unexpected benefits. Early last year my employer asked everyone for their opinions on home working, and I said I didn't think I'd particularly like it, but it turns out I love it. I was worried about losing the routine of working in the office, but I'm perfectly capable of keeping that going at home - the getting ready for work routine is exactly the same except for an extra hour in bed and no commute. It helps that we each have a dedicated space to work in, and I always make sure to be dressed, even if I'm dressed down. That's not to say I haven't worked in my dressing gown a few times, if I'm feeling low or it's been particularly cold, but I'm in clothes underneath and not my PJs. The thing that's really helped is not having the commute, and that's something I'm hearing from a lot of colleagues. It wasn't until that was removed that people really realised just how much stress it was causing them - whether with traffic and finding somewhere to park, or rushing to catch crowded public transport. That's not to say everything's come up peaches. Mental health has been a big concern and both of us have struggled at times. It helped that we set ground rules early about asking for and giving each other space, and letting the other person know if we're having a bad day or are likely to be particularly snappy. It's helped to keep things from escalating into arguments, where before we might have taken the other person's bad mood personally. I'm going on social media less often now, since Facebook and Twitter are mostly relentless firehoses of negativity, although I'm keeping up with other online connections like forums since it's easier to control what I'm exposed to and have actual conversations. Something I wasn't expecting is to be less interested in watching TV and movies. There are a few things I'm keen to keep up with or rewatch, but mostly I find it a bit dull and am reading or playing computer games instead - things I'd been doing less off. (Although we are planning a full rewatch of Supernatural before we get to season 15 on DVD). I'm writing more, having tailed off to pretty much nothing by the end of last year. Part of that is the annual reset (I take December off and then hit January running) but hopefully it's also a sign that things have settled enough that I can plough on. My novel was abandoned early last year, and I wrote little apart from a handful of pretty dark poems and some fanfiction. I want to keep doing that, but also pick up with longer works and turn around some projects that have been languishing on my harddrive for far too long. Of course I said I was going to take on new things last year, too... |
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