Finding the fun

Last week, my dearest Emily and Autumn and I had a virtual wine night as we'd had several times before. Having gone from living together or in the same college town to living in different cities/states, we decided many months ago to have virtual wine nights when we could so we could catch up and have some fun. Last week was a little different though — due to COVID-19, it seems everyone these days is staying in and virtually hanging out with their loved ones just to stay connected.

While on our virtual wine night, Emily said she wanted to run an idea by us: what if a group of young adults (that were all suddenly working from home across the country) made things more exciting by doing a spirit week?

Autumn and I were behind the idea 100% — a new theme each day to plan an outfit around, mixing up the "work from home" casual uniform with something fun and different. For me, this was only week #2 of working from home but I could already tell the change in pace would be beneficial for my mindset.

The days' themes were announced the night before, giving something to look forward to each night. Since I work nights (3 p.m. to midnight), it often meant I could run to my closet during my dinner break and have a creative reset by putting together pieces I owned to fit the theme.

Today's theme: rainbow.

We started the week off with safari on Monday, followed by space on Tuesday. Wednesday (which is technically my 'Friday' since I have Thursday and Friday's off) was nerds vs. jocks. In high school, when we had the same theme one year, I opted for a Steve Urkel-inspired nerd look. Try as I might, I could not find photo evidence of that — I guess I scrubbed it from the internet years ago. Wednesday, I shook things up by going for the jock. Then yesterday, western/cowboy. It's been a fun variety.

This is all to say that we can be resilient — we can take these dark, uncertain times and find little things to enjoy. Whether it's mixing up your wardrobe for a week, learning something new that you can practice at, or really anything else — it's important to find something that brings you joy. And go toward it at full speed.