The Longest Week Ever

Yes, I know I don’t usually post on Saturday. These are strange times.

Along with the rest of you, I’ve been social distancing and teleworking for a little over a week now.

I’m not bored…yet. But, I don’t like this.

First, the day job requires that I telework, which is fine and good. But it also is currently requiring that I complete a time-log to fill up eight hours. My contention is that I don’t fill eight hours back-to-back at the office. There’s time consulting with co-workers, including random conversations about kids and other stuff. There’s time making coffee, walking to the printer, and even going to the bathroom.

The way I see it is if my tasks are getting done, then I have worked a full day, even if that wasn’t a full 480 minutes.

If this goes on much longer my telework entries are going to start saying things like “peed four times.”

But, enough of that. That’s Monday’s task. You don’t need to know how many times I pee this weekend. I’m a man in my 60s. Deal with it.

I’ve seen the memes going around about how Shakespeare wrote King Lear during quarantine from the plague. I will readily admit that I will not likely even read King Lear during this time.

It’s a funny thing. When it first started I posted on Facebook that this is the Super Bowl for introverts, we’ve been practicing for it our entire lives.

And now, it’s not just something we want to do. It’s something we have to do.

Yes, I’m still working the day job, but I get another two or three hours to my day when I don’t have to get dressed (up) for the office and don’t have to do the commute.

The challenge is how to be productive. I’m working on that. I have a list.

But, like many of you, I’m struggling just a bit with depression from all of the things I’m missing.

My show in Williamsburg was canceled early on. I was disappointed, but I was handling that okay.

The opening of the amusement park had been delayed two weeks. News came yesterday that the hope is to open sometime in mid-May…another six weeks.

For the first time I was legitimately sad. I won’t lie, my screen got a little blurry.

We will get through this. The human spirit is strong. What we each have to do is to find a way to rise to the challenge. Consider these:

  • Noah and his family were in the ark (with a lot of smelly animals, for those of you that have teenagers) for 40 days.
  • Anne Frank and her family hid for 761 days having to be quiet as to not be discovered.
  • The Count of Monte Cristo was in prison for 21 years, the first seven in solitary confinement before he met the Abbott.

If any of those stories are unfamiliar, you have time to read them now.

Sure, this sucks. But we have the Internet and streaming services and television and radio to keep us going.

And I have a list of projects I usually complain about not getting done.

Whether this is a few weeks or, heaven forbid, a few months, we will endure.

I do not discount the economic hardship. I have many, many friends in theater and performance who have found their shows and their tours canceled. They’re coming home and not quite knowing how they’re going to make it.

It’s not devastating for me, but I’m taking an economic hit as well. I’m losing both theater and amusement park income. I’m trying to find ways to make that up through writing projects, but even that takes time.

What this ultimately means for me is that I won’t be retiring from the day job nearly as soon as I thought. If you know, you know and that’s all that I’ll say about this.

I’m preaching to myself here, but I’m working to rise to the challenge.

I hope when this is history that I’m a better person. I hope I can learn during this time.

And, I hope that I’ll be able to remember what really matters most.

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