204 days in a row working in my home office. It was worth it-every goal met or exceeded (fist pumping the air like Rocky), but now, after six weekends of personal freedom, I still feel the toll this marathon took on my nervous system. I walk outside, breathe in the cool, fall air and stretch my arms to the sky. Blessed world, welcome me back to you. Then I pause and remember. Covid.

I don’t want to get it. But as the pandemic pushes us into isolation, my response has been, professionally and personally, to reach out. Even when the connection is virtual, I believe in some quantum physics way, we're touching each other. Zoom calls are a shadow of a warm hug or time spent in a cafe drinking coffee and sharing stories with a friend. But it’s something. This could all be much worse.

I work from home, which is fortunate. Remote work is something I’m used to, and actually enjoy. I co-led a team that turned an in-person conference involving over 900 folks from around the world into a virtual one. I started a women’s support group that meets weekly, and host a monthly book club. All now online, but deeply meaningful.

Still, I’m not kidding when I say, eight months into the pandemic, I’m suffering PTSD from Zoom. I often wake up around 3AM, stressed about a zoom meeting I’m supposed to host and am unprepared for, or one I started and fell asleep during. I dread the repercussions, and make plans on how to respond. It’s only in the morning when I realize these situations are not real. But despite the nightmares, the inner cringe that rises up when I schedule Zoom meetings, I keep doing it.

I’m seeing folks in real life, too, though most of the time I’m cloistered at home with my husband, Jon. We share a need to be social, and approach interactions with others with care. We host friends on our back deck, setting their chairs ten feet from ours. On our morning jaunt around the ponds, we call out greetings to acquaintances while walking quickly past, a goodly space between us. We drink cocktails with couples on either side of a fire pit, and are building our own fire pit space, for the winter months ahead. We’re about to add a big front porch that will allow us to socialize in bad weather. On a tip from a friend, we’re researching electric blankets to wrap ourselves in on cold nights. We’ve coined the terms “BYOEB” (bring your own electric blanket) and “BYOW” (bring your own wood) for winter 2021 get-togethers.

We hike with friends, pulling up our masks when the trails get narrow and we can’t distance. We talk looking ahead rather than towards each other, which is kind of weird, but quickly adapted to. When we meet with folks who work around our house-the person servicing our furnace, the plumbers who replaced a burst pipe, the builders who will construct our new porch, we’re all masked, but supportive and aware we must communicate this way, even if we sometimes have to repeat things, or move in a bit too close for safety to point something out.

I love making connections tangible, through soups I cook and then package to share with local friends, cookies I bake to include in care packages, letters I send, though not often enough, to people I know appreciate the written word. I’m also making sure I connect with natural beauty, heading out into the woods, bringing flowers into our home, diffusing oils in the office, getting away from the computer screen to look at the trees in our backyard, and listen to birdsong. Some nights I pour a glass of wine, light a candle, and color in my journal. I disconnect to connect with myself.

I often think about Jon, sharing this strange, anxious ride through Covid with me. I’m hyper-protective, as I witnessed him lose a great deal of his hearing to a previous virus. He’s put up with my fussing much more graciously than I’d expected. The months since March brought extraordinary challenges that affected us both; my worklife absorbed most of my attention, and I grappled with my mother’s death. Sometimes I’ve felt like I’m at war, ceaselessly marching (though all this was done sitting at my desk in the office). I’ve withdrawn a bit, self-protectively, to carry on and get through. Jon has always been there, though, with warm hugs and kisses, displaying the patience of Job when I’ve signaled in different ways the need to be alone. Now, as I lift my face to the sky, and am coming back to myself, I look forward to all the ways we will connect again, however challenging the journey ahead.

Read Throw Down by Diane

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