Been sometime that I have scribbled anything here and like each time, life takes over. This year has been one roller coaster ride with so much going on, and yet nothing really happening. A paradox.
Time has been moving rather fast this year with a global pandemic seizing the world. Life has been one roller coaster ride for me right since Jan, or rather late last year. I had got this job in Atlanta and had spent a majority part of the end of last year preparing to get my documentation, etc.. in place for the VISA.
Attending the VISA interviews and the countless farewells I landed up in America end of the month. Looking back that seems like a completely different world. Here I was, as recently as eight months back when I was criss-crossing the country, and across the atlantic within the first month only to be holed up in my high rise apartment for the remainder of the year.
After spending a very informative week in Florida, I got to Atlanta. New Country, new office, new colleagues, looking for a place to stay while spending my nights in a downtown hotel during the February chilly weather here in Atlanta, February seemed hopeful. Little did I realize that a virus brewing somewhere on the other side of the world would create havoc.
March, I moved into a perfect apartment suiting my tastes – high rise, with a beautiful long green view from the room with huge glass windows. The virus was razing through the world and by now we knew that it would be a matter of time it would start affecting us. We were asked to work from home. This started setting the tone for rest of the year.
Initially, without realizing the rather long impact of the pandemic, I was hopeful like everyone else that this would pass in a couple of months, if not weeks. An air of uncertainty all over, and my view from the apartment seeming monotonous, I gave in to the fact that this is here to stay.
Denial Mode, then ignore mode to then accepting the way it is mode and moving on. Since then, all the truisms of the pandemic and work from home have been coming true one after the another.
Cooking, going for longish walks in solitude, picking up home workouts through an app, reading extensively and watching a huge piece of content across streaming services. Did them all. While at the same time adapting to the “new normal”.
With the family on the other side of the planet, facetime has been a lifesaver. I would not have used so much bandwidth all my life till now on calls that I have used in the last six months. Thank goodness the internet speed kept up on both sides.
While I look back to the last six months, one thing that has immensely helped me remain sane is the day 1 decision in March that though there would be no office to go to, I would follow the same schedule and get into work mode (with work attire and shoes!) to ensure I mentally signal my body and the mind. This has helped and while it felt robotic at many a times, doing it for the last six months it has become a part of me.
The world still seems to be very much in the middle of the pandemic with the end nowhere in sight. Am hoping a vaccine would soon land up and reach the entire human population soon enough for life to be back to normal. What is normal again? Is this the “new normal”? A paradox.