I feel I’ve been hibernating.
I changed jobs in early March and the pandemic hit. I spent my days of government contracting waiting… Just waiting…
Then I took a job supporting Web Conferencing Platforms. You know what that means?
I support Zoom and Webex.
I had no idea the world would soon revolve around Zoom. It would be on the lips of millions of people across the world. Suddenly I had a skill set in massive demand.
My LinkedIn emails have never been so glowing. So many people are looking at your profile it crows seeking approval.
But while professionally I was a hot commodity, my days became a blur. I would stumble into my office at home and sit down to work.
Thankfully I had worked in that room for the past two or three years. It was well suited to the task at hand.
I was not.
I was learning Perl and how to call APIs. I was trying to sprint on the treadmill of Zoom’s constant changes. Their legal troubles. The public relations issues. But thankfully, no downtime. Say what you will of the company and their questionable choices, it has been solid and did not break under the weight of the world.
I would spend all day in that room. With periodic trips to fill my body with water, coffee and Coke then and relieve myself of the after effects of the same. My days were a blur. Even when I was able to stumble out of the room, I was often called back by the ding of an instant message or chime of an email requiring my skills or knowledge.
I wish I had kept a log of that time. It’s all a blur to me now. As the days continue to be. I wake up Monday morning and go to sleep Friday night in the space of a day.
The weekends come, or as my wife says, “that’s when I get to spend time with you.”
My week days feel short and frantic. My weekend days feel long and fulfilling. The weekend itself passes in the blink of an eye but those days I cherish and spend the time with my wife in our yard. Watching the birds at the feeder. Exploring post-apocalyptic West Virginia in Fallout 76 and finding the time to record a podcast.
It is somehow June. We are 12 days into June officially. Though I continue to insist it is February 243rd. That’s what it feels like.
The world has stopped and melted away into a fog of memory and remember whens.
At the same time, The World has become larger and more urgent. There was a protest march a block from my house this week.
There is a pandemic raging on.
Fueled my inept, uncaring leadership. The government has failed my wife and my family at every level.
While I am overwhelmed with work, my wife has seen 80% of her business vanish in a flash. She is self-employed and if it were not for telehealth she would be entirely our of work.
The Federal Government has failed her.
The State of Maryland had failed her.
Montgomery County has failed her.
She had applied for aid and waited… and waited… and waits.
Waits for aid that will never come.
We are living opposite lives in the same house. She is a Night Walker while I struggle to maintain a daylight schedule.
She looks at a business she spent 5 years building successfully get destroyed in a heartbeat. I look at a career that went from pause to hyperspeed.
I struggle to contain my work day and still have something left for her at the end of it. She stares down 22 hours in most days and tries to fill them.
I feel I’ve been hibernating since this all began. I don’t know what day it is. I have no clue what month we are in. Are there important events or milestones approaching?
I can only see the current day. Then I collapse. And start the next one underslept and overcaffeinated.
We have been in lockdown for 90 days.