Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (300)
March 2, 2026
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 308: A sad and scared worry. On the weekend, I’d been up and about for maybe 1.5 hours doing basic chores and my body buzzed with the sort of exhaustion warning that means the longer I do this, the harder the crash will be. I’ve “rested” (doing almost all the usual parenting and some of my work and some of my housework) for almost a month. What if this is my new baseline of awful? What if, unless I do something drastic like quitting my job (in this economy/fascist country??), this is the best/most my body can do?
My job sucks right now so obviously I am not fundamentally averse to quitting but I am completely averse to not having income and the consequences of that (eventual poverty). That’s the curve my mom’s reality took: work really hard to build a solid foundation, get sick, lose eveything. That takes very little foresight to predict if I don’t save and invest enough first. (And even then I occasionally wonder: really, how safe is our net worth?)
I wish it wasn’t a choice between potentially gaining health improvement in the short term by way of committing myself to the long term consequences of having cut my income at the peak of my career.
Year 6, Day 309: Today I’m reminding myself that the reason that I stay at my current job is that I have a level of autonomy that would be difficult to get elsewhere in the industry and that it’s entirely remote and that latter bit is what makes it possible for me to survive having a full time job while being a full time parent and doing all the other things that I need/want to do. I will still be sad and complain now and again but those are the two things I have to come back to – these are the things that would be very difficult to find in the COVID+6 years world where everyone is irrationally hot to get bodies back into office despite there being ample evidence that many jobs could be remove (and therefore more accessible to the disabled community). My therapist doesn’t think it’s healthy for me to think of myself as disabled but if I require a job that lets me work from bed for two months, or else I wouldn’t be able to survive doing my work AND being a parent, I’m not sure what else to call it. I don’t need to be called disabled but anywhere else in the professional world, what I need to do well at my job and manage life would be considered an unreasonable accommodation.
Year 6, Day 310: Is it ironic that while I’m still slowly shedding the tentacles of depression that bonded to my brain, death metal felt very soothing? Maybe but hattip to Fleshgod Apocalypse (a friend’s rec) and later on, The Hu, for helping ease my mind through a rough patch.
Shutterfly sent one of their “A glimpse of your memories from twenty years ago” emails and it served me a picture of me with an old friend, and an even older friend who died of cancer last year. Wow that hurts.
Year 6, Day 311: I love dental cleanings. I love that it’s only a 7 minute drive away. I especially love when I get what feels like an A or B at my exam. I got a “looks good” from the dentist, a “looks pretty good, not much build-up” from the hygienist and gum measurements show some improvement since my last exam. My goal is to have no 4s or 5s in 6 months. Hope hope hope.
Other things that are good: one friend’s divorce from a suddenly awful spouse who just upped sticks is final. Two more friends are divorcing abusive husbands. I hope their dissolutions are quick and drama free, I don’t trust those men even an ounce.
Trading unhealthy relationships for better circumstances FTW!
Year 6, Day 312: An unseasonably warm day today was an unanticipated treat. We’ve had a couple weeks of rain on and off. Even hail and a thunderstorm once! That was actually pretty neat since we don’t get a wide range of weather here.
I’m dragging into this Friday but at least still practically upright despite all kinds of staffing drama this week. I’m still putting a few of the smaller fires out but the worst of the solvable problems this week have been.