1- Getting so excited for TS tomorrow!!!! AAAAND our weather looks like it will be reasonably good. (This is very important since I expect parking to be farrrrr and the venue is open to air / rain anyway — as a person with a lot of weather anxiety and VERY little faith in FL’s October climate, this is excellent news).
(She debuted some new outfits for the Miami show last night and superfans went insane; I love her music but I would have been happy with any outfit and probably would not know what is new or not new; still it’s kind of fun to see the excitement around it all!)
2- Super interesting Planet Money interview on subscriptions! Josh made a list of subscriptions we have currently (based on YNAB – I do audit every statement every month so that definitely prevents stealth subscriptions!). Having a list is nice because when inevitably one of our credit cards gets changed due to fraud (seems to happen ~yearly?) you can figure out where you need to put in the new info.
3- I loved Laura’s interview with Cal Newport because she got very concrete and specific. I did have an epiphany moment during their conversation about my current lack of shutdown ritual. I think I really need to implement something formal and meaningful to enter the post-work portion of my day. In recent weeks (really, since August) I have REALLY struggled with going from work mode straight into a mode I can only describe as “zombie despair”, where I break all of my own rules about phone use and spend the rest of the night scrolling and feeling totally blah (punctuated by parenting responsibilities, obviously, but still).
I hate it. I miss reading! I miss feeling centered and present, and I find that for me this is highly correlated to phone use and the very dumb kinds of scrolling I tend to do when I’m in this state. WHY do I think the shutdown ritual would help? I think I get stuck in “well, I still have stuff to do but I am out of energy to do it” cycles of thinking and in my discomfort, the easiest escape is well . . you know. If I can take a pause a the end of the “work” phase of my day and wrap up in a more complete and intentional manner, I think I can enter the evening portion of the day in a better place.
Worth a try, anyway. (I spent so much time this year NOT scrolling – I know I can get back to that!)
4- In a post earlier in the week, I mentioned not having fond feelings of the pandemic. I should have made it clear that I totally think it’s reasonable for people to have those feelings, because when I looked back and read it, it seemed a bit judgmental (and I really didn’t mean it to be!). Was just noting the shape my own memories have taken.
5- I meant to mention this earlier in the week but it got away from me: if anyone has CME $ and wants to see me (and many others!) at WCICON (physician wellness + financial literacy conference), you can use code ‘SPEAKER’ for $200 off. The event is in San Antonio in late Feb. I applied and was super excited to get in; haven’t really done anything like this before and definitely looking forward to it. If you are going let me know — would love to connect at the conference!
13 Comments
I’m excited for you to see TS! I’m taking my 12 year old daughter in Vancouver turns out we are going on the last night of the whole tour. Can’t wait!
that is so special (and, I love Vancouver)! Have an amazing time!!
Enjoy TS! I find that I fall asleep more quickly if I read a physical book in bed for a half hour before turning out the lights. I belong to a service called Paperback Swap which allows you to send and receive wish list books in the mail. You can start by listing 10 books to offer (even kids books) and then create a wish list of books that you want. If you set it up for auto-send, the books that you request get sent to you automatically. It’s like getting a present in the mail! For books that you send out, you can print out a label and put it in your mailbox for the postal carrier to pick up- easy. I get Kindle books via Libby, Hoopla or Cloud library from our wonderful local library, but use PBS to accumulate physical pre-bedtime books.
I use the library for physical books! I have NO lack of book stack. I’ve just not been in a good space with reading lately (not beating myself up about that, but I miss it!). I love the idea of PBS though!!
I didn’t think you sounded judgmental when talking about your pandemic experiences. I think it sucked for the majority of people, and even for those of us for whom it would up being a special time, there was still a lot of uncertainty. I definitely remember it feeling slightly apocalyptic. But there are plenty of things where most people have one experience and some have a completely different one. I one time read some incredibly judgmental things about women who feel anxious during pregnancy (like in a “get outside and touch grass women have been doing this for thousands of years stop being such a baby” kind of way) and I was stunned, but I think that person was probably fortunate enough to have had a series of uncomplicated pregnancies followed by routine deliveries and recoveries, and she thinks that’s the case for everyone. She can’t understand what there is to get so worked up about. That’s great for her, but that was not my experience whatsoever. I think the same kind of thing can come across when we talk about spring 2020, just a complete cluelessness that people had wildly different experiences.
Yes. Even if I didn’t sound too judgmental, it’s a good reminder for me anyway. We can all experience things differently and it’s all valid.
I don’t think you came across as judgemental either FYI. I’ve recently noticed an increase in sort of positive-pandemic stories, and while that’s great that some people felt it was a special time for them, I can still be OK that it was a terrible awful time for my family. The only good thing I can think of that happened for me was giving birth to my daughter at home – which was actually awesome and I wouldn’t have done if my husband was allowed in the hospital with me – but it’s also not mentally great that I had to give birth at home for fear of giving birth alone.
I was recently talking to a friend of ours who had an 8 month old at lockdown time and they said it was wonderful for their family – she was on maternity leave and her husband got to spend work days at home and they both remember it so positively. I was in work with a 15 month old at home and 3 months pregnant. We live a mile apart, our kids are only 8 months apart and we had wildly different experiences. I think it’s OK to not look back fondly because even small differences were huge then. I do find it interesting to learn more about how vastly differently everyone experienced both the pandemic and also “leaving” the pandemic.
FWIW, I think it’s on those of us who have positive memories of the pandemic to be sensitive to others. I certainly don’t go around blasting “hey guys remember how great the lockdowns were??” just because I had a silver lining and others didn’t. Plus I would never want to give the impression that I think the lockdowns were GOOD, or that I would want to go back. No, I just miss spending an hour on the deck every morning drinking coffee, then spending all day outside in the garden! Spring was beautiful in Virginia that year, which tbh the world owed that to us, lol.
HAVE FUN!!! The weather is probably the best you could probably hope for, in South Florida in October. Can’t wait to hear all about it.
I didn’t think you sounded judgmental at all. I am still super bitter about how terribly our school system handled everything. Where we live kids weren’t even playing with anyone outside aside from maybe one other family in their “pod” and if no one wanted you, you were super isolated. I feel frustrated when people blithely ignore all the really terrible stuff that happened. If you had special needs kids who couldn’t manage telehealth at all it was a terrible time. A co-worker died by suicide. The lockdowns had some really really bad consequences. I don’t mind anyone having their own good memories, I am not going to begrudge anyone that but I feel the need to counter it a little bit because seriously it was really terrible for a lot of people.
I don’t think you sounded judgmental. You had three kids, two of whom were pretty young! Of course it was a tough time for you. I think it might have actually been a very nice time for some people (e.g. married, childless introverts with easy-to-remote jobs).
But nostalgia is so powerful! I have very sweet memories of the newborn period (reality: lots of tears, little sleep) as well as grad school (reality: poverty, loneliness, existential confusion) and even adolescence (reality: adolescence). I have very sweet memories of the lockdowns, too (life was so simple! my kids were so small!), even though the reality was pretty mixed.
Hi! Long-time reader, first-time commenter 🙂 I’m looking forward to listening to Laura’s interview with Cal Newport! I’m not sure if this is helpful for your situation, but I have found that if I do a shut-down routine at the end of the workday, it doesn’t necessarily translate into finding energy to cook, clean, and everything else that I have to do once I get home. I’m a big pomodoro timer fan and have really been enjoying the app FocusPomo (because you collect these cute tomatoes! and it logs all the tomatoes you’ve completed) combined with my home admin planner. I’ll often set just a 5-minute or 10-minute timer on it and say, I’m going to get whatever I need to get done at the pace that I can handle and then sit down during my pomodoro break to scroll my phone however I want for 5 minutes. Then I continue that cycle and that usually helps me get through the evening without burning my energy out!
Enjoy the TS concert!
TS WAS AMAZING and thank you!! Yeah, magic energy no but I’d rather use my down time more intentionally (reading, calling someone, etc) and I think this might helps! That app sounds lovely 🙂