Concentrating During COVID

Following a thought is like trying to find a flashlight in a nebula for me right now.

Back when Sparkling Isolation and Widespread Shutdown began, I had far higher hopes for the way I'd handle it and stay optimistic and productive than I actually delivered on.   Honestly, I didn't really get out too awful much myself, in the days before.  I thought the departure from the grind would be a good reset for everyone, and we could emerge from it bright-eyed and recharged.

And I was counting on myself to be far, far more productive than I have been.  Other people were cleaning their houses.  I have sat right in the middle of the floor and stared with despair at the clutter, paralyzed by not knowing where to start and not trusting that I'll see it through to the end.  I've started reading books, only to find my attention grow cold mid-sentence and off I wander.  I started craft projects I haven't picked back up. 

And the writing?

In the old days, it was nothing for me to sit down and start writing in the morning and have close to twenty or twenty-five pages written over the course of the day.  No sweat.

I haven't done much of that since everything shut down.  Facebook posts.  This blog.  And there are days when it takes me far longer to churn out this blog than it should.

Some days, I get to the end of the day and have no idea what I accomplished, other than it feels like inside my head, there's a squirrel riding a unicycle while juggling knives, and the thing I accomplished is not letting that squirrel out of my head to run out into the world and up somebody's leg.

Thing is, I'm having a super-hard time concentrating during COVID.  Following a thought or a task to the end right now is like trying to find a flashlight in a field of stars.

Apparently this isn't so weird.  It's Pandemic Anxiety.  And this doesn't look like crumpling up in a corner and breathing into a paper bag.  It looks like not being able to concentrate or maybe eat or sleep very well.  It looks like underlying tension and stress that you can't really place, but you know it's there.

I think a lot of us are feeling Pandemic Anxiety and trying to find flashlights in fields of stars right now.  I would argue that Pandemic Anxiety is a pandemic in its own right.  This is what it looks like to concentrate (or not) during COVID. It's hard to have patience when you're all balled up with anxiety.  We're all discovering that, if we didn't know it before.  But patience is what we all need right now, for others and for ourselves.  We don't need to be crushin' it, killin' it, or particularly winning, other than counting it as a Win as long as we see the next day.

There'll be time when this is all over to crush it, kill it, and win at whatever game we'll be playing then.