You Are Not Being Graded on How Well You Do the Pandemic

Recently, I’ve started telling my friends who are tired, overwhelmed, frustrated, afraid, not coping well, and trying their best — we do not have to do this pandemic well, we just have to get through it.

The pandemic may feel like a test you are failing, but there will be no grade at the end. I promise you, you will not receive a pandemic report card listing “who adjusted best.” If there was, I would get a C- or maybe I’d get “spends too much time on the internet” and “can’t stay focused.”

Early on in the pandemic when I was home 24/7, quarantined, I realized that I was not going to use my time home to clean the guest bedroom (something I said I’d always do if I had time.) I realized that along with extra time, I had grief from not seeing my friends or family, I had a daughter home from college, a ton of new information being dropped on us, things changing daily, and I had absolutely no desire to organize the house.

I felt bad I wasn’t using my time “wisely.”

So in June, when I noticed I had no idea where my time was going, I drew 30 small boxes to fill in daily with what I did with my day. Some said, “worked from home, napped, watched RuPaul’s Drag Race.” One day just said, “fish tacos.” I am not kidding you. We are in a pandemic, everything feels terrible, and I wrote “fish tacos.” I have no idea what I did the other 23 hours.

But then I thought — right now, we are living through social and political unrest, injustice, the most important election of my lifetime, and yes, also a pandemic like one we’ve never seen. So instead of criticizing myself for what I didn’t accomplish, I decided the fact I ate fish tacos during a pandemic, I would call that a win.

Here’s what I tell myself and my friends — there is not going to be a grade at the end of the pandemic of how well you did; there is no A+ in Pandemicking, so don’t beat yourself up over how you “didn’t take advantage of the time home” or “all the times you weren’t productive.” Being productive is overrated and a very American concept. Why not just be?

It’s okay to feel overwhelmed.

We have never experienced a year like this. And if you go on social media, it may seem like people are coping or happy or perfectly adjusted to this new way of living — and they might be for a moment, but most likely, like many of us, there are good and bad days; there are days I feel, “Alright, this isn’t normal, but I’m okay,” or there are other days when I think “I am about three steps away from a breakdown.”

I don’t have the exact answer on what to do to feel better as I think we each have our own coping strategies — I know friends who have kicked up their exercise routine to let the serotine flow and there are people like me who have kicked up the amount of smoked swiss cheese I eat. Different ways of feeling better.

I try to find moments of humor and gratitude. I remind myself daily, I am luckier than many. I try to find small ways to make things better for others — like what can I do to help? Sometimes it’s bringing my mother dinner, sitting outside six feet apart from her, and have a nice conversation. Sometimes it’s making a donation to a campaign I support or on my best days, it’s signing up for the Zoom class to learn how to call registered voters. Sometimes it’s a quick email or text to a friend to say hi. And some days, I don’t have enough emotional bandwidth to do anything, so write “fish tacos” in a ridiculous box I feel will make me understand where my time went.

I feel we are experiencing group trauma, and some days it feels as if we’re in some weird social experiment, but it’s okay just to be. If you can do something creative — do it. If you can spend a day offline in nature, go for it. If you need to spend the day watching puppy videos, or researching ottomans or “best lounge pants” on the internet, that’s okay too.

I don’t think as a society, we’ve ever had the kind of stress, emotional fatigue, or anything like what we are experiencing now (and it varies from good to worse depending on so many things individually in each of our lives), but if I can say to you — breathe in and give yourself a break, I will.

This is a hard time to be human. For 1000 reasons and more. But we can and will get through this, and I believe we will be better for it. You are okay. You didn’t just “waste 6 months of your life,” you survived a pandemic. You are surviving a pandemic. Just be gentle with yourself and each other, we’re doing our best in the worst of situations. And I promise, as bad as this gets, no one will be sending out report cards…and if they do, there is a really easy way to me a Ds and Fs look like Bs.

Thank you for reading this, and I am glad you are in the world. Stay safe, stay kind.