Friends! How are you holding up during this insanely crazy time? What are you eating? What are you watching? I’m so curious about how everyone is coping.
If you are like me, you are a working mom who is suddenly thrust into the role of teacher, and stay at home mom, and trying to find ways to help right now, and try to keep her business afloat and try to keep up with the news and not lose her mind. It is, in a word, reallyreallyhard.
Perhaps this has been particularly difficult for New Yorkers, not only because we are at the epicenter of the pandemic but that New Yorkers are notoriously out and about. We don’t live here for the sprawling real estate after all. We go out to eat and order take out WAY more than we cook. (Remember when Carrie Bradshaw admitted she used her oven for storage?) Our apartments are small and we often have roommates… so sheltering at home is not easy!
Always a Pollyanna, I am trying to see the bright side to all of this: how rare is it that I can have this kind of uninterrupted (read: forced) time at home with our families? I don’t have to pump at work! I can nap on those days that the baby keeps me up at night. At the same time, I can’t help but fantasize about being unattached and on my own during this time - surely I would have learned Mandarin by now and my business would be booked up though 2121. The grass is always greener, I guess.
I think the hardest part about all of this is that it’s not something we signed up for — our expectations for the next few months we one thing and this f*ing virus changed it all, without much warning and without our consent. But just because things have changed, doesn’t mean they have to be bad. Here are some ways I’ve been coping with this new normal:
Get dressed in the morning … eventually
The hardest part of “the old days” for me was getting my 4 year old out of the house to get to school in time. The amount of times I ask, “ did you brush your teeth?” nearly puts me over the edge before it’s even 8am. For the past few weeks, instead of waking up early to get my own sh*t together, I’ve allowed my 4 year old to wake me up, climb into bed and snuggle for a few minutes before we get our day going. I feed the baby in bed, and I drink coffee in my robe. Yes, I do get dressed eventually - I’m a firm believer that the way we look & present ourselves affects the way we feel and vice versa, so I don’t want to get TOO lethargic BUT, as a woman who loves a good robe, I am reveling in taking my mornings a little bit slower.
Draw some bouderies for yourself.
This is sooo hard for me to do. However, this week I have realzied that it’s better for me to “go to work” in another room for a few hours rather than try to work half-heartedly around my four year old, who then feels she needs to vie for my attention. Then I end up frustrated, she ends up feeling alone, even though we are together and everyone feels grumpy and over it come the end of the day. Instead, I try to get my work done a few hours at a time and then spend some time in a concentrated effort with my daughters. Live alone? Give yourself blocks of time to work and be sure to schedule in breaks for fresh air, change of pace, movement, whatever you need to do. And be sure you “go home” after work for the day. I always have a hard time letting my work day spill into the evening hours when I work from home. Give yourself a time that you are leaving the office and then do just that (even if it’s just by stepping away from the laptop).
Connect with those you love.
Photo courtesy of Keturah Bishop
A zoom happy hour? Not my style. I’ve always been more of a one on one kind of girl. Real conversations - sure, on Zoom or facetime or whatever - with those friends I don’t get to speak with on a regular basis have given me life these past few weeks. I miss my friends, and now that we all have a more open social calendar, it’s been really rewarding catching up with them in a meaningful way. Quarentined with your honey? That doesn’t mean you can’t still have a date night - get dressed up, eat dinner at a normal hour after the kids have gone to bed, make an adult beverage and watch a movie.
Interesting also is that whatever stage of life you are in at the moment, and wherever you are in the world, EVERYONE is dealing with this pandemic in one way or another. It’s something everyone has in common - how often does that happen?? So even though it’s for a difficult reason, it feels good to reconnect with those who we’ve maybe lost touch with during the usual daily grind of life.
Help someone who needs it.
It can be in a big or small way. Call a friend who is feeling isolated. Reach out to someone elderly to see if they need something. Use whatever skills you have to make someone’s day brighter. Professionally, I’ll be gifting a medical professional a shoot just to say thank you and give them some much deserved pampering once this is all over. Personally, I kondo’d my kids’ clothes and made hand me down care packages for 2 friends who just had babies. Even something small can be meaningful for all involved.
Schedule something to look forward to when this passes
I had a birthday boudoir session planned for myself with my mentor Kara Marie Trombetta this March, which of course, got postponed. I was super sad about missing it but then remembered, I’m not going to miss it! It’s still going to happen when the self-quarentine regulations ease up and for that I am really excited. And have you seen how cheap airfares are?? The family trip I was planning for Greece may not happen this July but it WILL happen and hopefully will be a little easier on the pocketbook. Whatever it is — big or small — having something to lookforward to and spend energy working towards will help keep your eye on that light at the end of the tunnel, instead of getting lost in the dark. Interested in a Brooklyn Boudoir Shoot? Let’s chat - my schedule is wide open for the fall!
Learn something new or revisit something old
After we’ve all cleaned and Kondo’d what are you going to do? I have had such a long list of projects that maybe I’ll actually get to — creating family albums in print with all the old digitals I have stored, re-editing old shoots of mine now that I’ve got better retouching skills and a more defined style, keeping my website fresh with new images, learning various new retouching techniques, restarting a photo a day self portrait project… there’s so much to do and learn! Now if only I could find the time…
Give yourself a break.
This is a tough time no matter what your circumstances. Give yourself permission to indulge in your favorite guilty pleasures (Tiger King, anyone?) Take advantage of the time at home - nest, Kondo, do all the projects you never have time to do Or don’t! If you didn’t spring clean your house, or write that novel, or organzie your photos or start that online class… that’s just fine! Hang in there and remember that this won’t last forever. You are tougher than you think you are. You can handle this.
Sending love and looking fowrard to the day we can hug again!