Isolation Diaries #1: Time and Potential

I just got off a staff meeting about the need to socialise with students while we worked up a plan to continue teaching them. Everyone nodded and used words like “crisis” and “war time”. There was a lot of “keep spirits up” and “we should definitely have another meeting about that further down the line”. I experimented with my mute button to see if anyone noticed when I went mute. They didn’t.

The social side isn’t a concern for me personally. I might have texted people more often than usual two weeks ago. But I have pretty much shrunk back into homebody mode now.

My issue is the time I have. I am not yet working from home. I have no schedule, no kids and no pets (address your rage elsewhere please). I leave the house twice a week and spend a lot of my time on Reddit watching other people being social.  It looks exhausting.

I tend to think big when I have time. Past dreams are reborn and new dreams take hold. I was once unemployed for six months and came up with a (shitty) business plan for a membership only Sci-Fi and Fantasy library with all sorts of facilities and workshops for creatives. There was going to be a Mac suite for filmmakers, masterclasses for writers and comic artists. A little cafe with sci-fi and fantasy themed food…

Then I got a job and abandoned it immediately. And even though I have titled this post as a diary with a cheeky #1, I may well abandon it too once something better comes along. I am bloody fickle.

Because dreaming a small first step and carrying that out is much easier than dreaming big and getting crushed by the weight of your ambition. There’s nothing I like better than for a manager to see me obsessing over the placement of an image on PowerPoint and saying, “Oh my God, that’s good enough for now staaahhhp!”

Good enough for now.

That’s a mantra I have had to develop during this period of isolation. Because I am getting obsessy again. I can feel it happening. My life has been put on hold and I have starting shopping around for a better one. Maybe I’ll become a Youtuber or start an Etsy shop.

My partner in isolation is no different.

“I’m just looking into becoming a navy diver. You’d just need to swim,” he pontificates.

That actually sounds kinda cool.

He turns back to his screen, “And defuse mines.”

Oh.

Apparently he looked on glassdoor to see what other people thought. Time away from family was the dealbreaker for him.

I just delicately asked him if there are any other jobs that he’s looked at.

“I’m not your source material,” he says flatly. “I’m your husband.”

Busted.

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