Cats make a great alarm clock and other lessons from sheltering-in-place

By Mel Hilario, Corporate Operations Manager, Instructor, & Personal Trainer

The COVID-19 quarantine seemed to happen quickly. First: don’t shake hands, sanitize the doorknobs. Then: stay six feet apart, stay home. And now: wear a mask, wipe down your groceries, even wash the apples and oranges, as well as navigate a constant deluge of news. It makes sense that we got overwhelmed and freaked out a little—or a lot.

Hindsight, they say, is 20/20–and so far, 2020 has already given us a lot to look back on. I asked myself: what would late-April Me want to tell mid-March Me? 

First, I’d say, use your bathroom scale as a frisbee. Take the batteries out and use it as a trivet (you’ll be baking a lot, you’ll need it). Or, just value the scale a little less during this time period—the weight we’re all bearing is heavier than normal, so it kind of makes sense if we are, too.

You and your spouse might get into a screaming match about butter, or dinner, or laundry, or __________.  Prepare for communication mishaps. You could multiply the likelihood for them by 1.5 for every person in your house (2.5 if said person is not yet an adult). Close quarters + stress = occasional verbal mayhem. Breathe. Your husband was not trying to steal your fish sticks, he knows better.

Watch Galaxy Quest for the 87th time. Froth milk for a fancy coffee drink. Spend a morning in bed reading an actual book. And yes, those sweatpants can probably be worn for one more day. Enjoy your small comforts; they’re the strongest anchors to a sense of reality.

Your terrible ukulele playing is just fine! It’s not a coincidence that people have tapped into their creativity during quarantine. Look forward to the Coronavirus dance track featuring Cardi B, the family doing a parody of Les Miserables, the COVID museum pieces?  People will sew masks, make comics, and more than one laugh-out-loud TikTok. You’ll take dance classes with Debbie Allen and Tiler Peck! And D-Nice DJ’ing on Instagram Live, turning your living room into Club Quarantine. We reach for art during a pandemic, because art reminds us what we have in common and that maybe people aren’t all jerks.

You could also look to animals for humanity. Notice they still need walks, snuggles, and are generally very happy for your company. Get outside, take in some of the newly-fresh air, enjoy the walk as much as a dog would. Sleep as contentedly as your cats until (they wake you to feed them).  Tales of ducks, wild deer, and coyotes strolling through Paris, Sri Lanka, and San Francisco tell us there are still moments of peace to be found after pulling back from life as we knew it.

Get your free endorphins—they make you happy in a different way than Hulu and Netflix (although Love is Blind actually will make you cry). This might not be the best time to start a 10k training plan, but it might be the perfect time to finally inflate that stability ball, walk to your neighborhood corner store instead of driving, or practice standing on one leg while you’re brushing your teeth. Movement is medicine; find the dose that works for you and not for influencers on Instagram.

You’ll have to jump on the Zoom train to work and stay connected, and both the virtual happy hours and Pilates classes save your life. But Zoom time is not normal time. Like social media, it’s interaction without the nuances of real life. Especially on a call with several people, you can’t see everyone at once, voices compete or cut in and out, and it’s harder to read the room. Three calls in a day (and you WILL have three or MORE daily) might be exhausting.

And on that note, cut yourself a whole lot of slack. You’re not working or feeling like usual because it’s not, like, usual. What, you can’t pivot into handling disaster with the agility of a Navy SEAL? Omg, are you a regular HUMAN? How dare you! You’re allowed to be imperfect in a time of less-than-perfect conditions. We’re faced with a new demand: making sense of where we are. This mental fog and roller coaster of emotions is Step 1 of how we adapt. 

It’s been over a Month of Eternal Days. In the end, not going out means you have to go in, and that might be part of what scares people. What really worries you when you’re not enveloped in the madness of wake up/work/sleep/repeat? When you're not juggling survival and fulfillment? What does life look like outside of the fray?