It seems odd to be saying this when my supervisor and I have just agreed on a finish date. Yes, it is looking highly likely that I will be submitting in Feb/March 2022. Right on schedule—according to my goal. According to the uni, as I am a part-time student I still have right up until June 2024.
Why am I narrowing my time frame now? Isn’t six months narrow enough?
Nope. Not when we are all trying to figure out COVID-19 and it’s Delta variant.
Not when things are uncertain and a person has been doing the lockdown hokey-pokey. Those of you who live in regional Victoria, Australia, know what I mean. It’s draining not knowing from one day to the next whether I will head off to teach or fire up my computer and teach through the screen.
All of the sacrifices and impacts of COVID are draining. Plenty of my friends have been in lockdown for weeks and months—Hey, NSW buddies, hang in there. We are all wondering “How is it going to end?”. Yes, my year 9’s are studying The Truman Show.
The thing is, it will end—just in case you were wondering.
At some point we will, collectively, figure it out. In the meantime, I am tired of it all. So I have decided it’s time to try to make the most of the situation.
I have narrowed my timeframe down to two weeks.
I have listed the research “chores” I need to attend to before my next supervisory meeting (I didn’t get very far, but that’s okay). Likewise, I have thought about the things in my everyday life that will happen in those two weeks.
For the next two weeks I mostly know what I am doing. And that feels good. It feels solid and it feels like it won’t change. At the end of that time, I can’t be sure if we will finish lockdown or not. But that worry is outside of my current time frame, and not needing attention right now.
In an effort to make lockdown more bearable, I built a box and tweeted about Moo, who loves my home office (I sometimes wonder if she is the mastermind behind it all!). I potted up some new indoor plants and sorted out a stand for my monitor.
All very little things.
Yet, these little things give me a sense of pleasure (yes, I am currently reading Freud’s Beyond The Pleasure Principal).
It’s important to have something to look forward to, like seeing the bees on the newly opening freesias or a lizard sunny herself on a rock. Or Moo sneak-sleeping on my office chair—where am I suppose to sit!? Or Raf’s leotheradiocat, my latest celebrity crush (Leo, not Raf—sorry Raf).
It’s also important to limit COVID stories.
American children in ICU and the number of motherless newborns delivered early due to their mothers catching COVID and then passing away breaks my heart. As does the anger generated when restrictions feel like a personal insult. And, of course, not forgetting Afghanistan and people just like you and me facing the reality of true oppression. What they wouldn’t give to be tucked safely in their homes, only allowed out for five reasons. They have lost lives clinging to a plane just to have the freedom to live with the “lack of freedom” we are experiencing right now.
It’s all too much.
We are easily overwhelmed and must manage ourselves kindly. To give over to anger is to allow bitterness to consume us, to be filled with despair, and begin seeing others as “other”. Better to try a little kindness. Take a walk and crinkle your eyes at someone, maybe even give a little eyebrow raise and slight head nod. We’re learning to smile with more than just our mouths.
Moo is snoring and I am aware that one of my kids needs to use my office for an online meeting…
Narrow your time frame, my friend.
This Writer's Life 