The new normal

This week, like many others nationwide, I started working from home due to concerns surrounding the spread of COVID-19. The past two weeks have been full of changes that I never would've predicted. Last Tuesday even, I don't think I would've guessed that within a week I'd pack up my things at the station with no idea when I'd return again.

It's been an adjustment for sure. But the most important thing is that I'm doing my part to keep others safe, so I'm happy to do it.

I've found that it's important to treat working from home the same as working, well, at work. I know I'm not the first person to say this, but it's the first time I've experienced it.

In college, I can't count the number of times I did my work on my laptop while sitting on my bed or while cozied up on the couch. And there were plenty of days where I packed my things up and made myself at home in a campus library or at the coffee shop where I worked.

I can't do anything like that now —in part because restaurants and bars across North Carolina are now only allowed to serve take-out and delivery orders. But also because what's really needed right now is some consistency, a sense of normalcy.

So I cleared the kitchen table, put a few little decorations around my laptop, and picked a chair to drape my blanket over (the same one I usually keep at the station). That's my workspace for as long as I may work from home — which could be a while, for all I know. And if that workspace gets uncomfortable, I'll get up and stretch or something. But I won't move to the couch. It's not like I could have done that at work anyway. If this is the new normal for now, I might as well try to make it similar to what I was used to.

I don't know how long this will last. Nobody does. But I'm very privileged that my life is only impacted the way that it is: I will adapt to a new way of working, and I will have to Skype my friends more often and limit when I leave my apartment. But my heart absolutely breaks for my friends and loved ones who are hit harder — those who are let go from jobs they have counted on due to closures, those who are immuno-compromised and are afraid, those who are seniors at college being forced to redefine their last semester. This isn't what any of us wanted or expected.

But what many of us are doing — staying home, adapting — is the right thing to do. There's so much uncertainty surrounding this all, but I find peace knowing what I can do to contribute: find what the "new normal" is for me, and make it work.