Lessons from a Pandemic

By: Erin Rose Hennessy

As I sit here on this Friday morning listening to my nephews’ cartoons, I am reflecting on the past week since I last wrote a blog post. I got a part-time nanny position (20 hours a week), so I had dedicated “nanny days” and dedicated “blog post/pay bills/deal with mail” days. It’s very possible I may roll with that and do blog posts on non-nanny days. The situation continues to change daily, however, so who knows? Our Governor is set to address the state on Sunday evening. Here’s hoping he doesn’t extend the stay-at-home order…

This week feels like it was about a year long and so did last week. So now we’re all about ten years older now, right? I feel like this pandemic is teaching all of us many good skills, though. For me, this pandemic has taught me how resilient I actually can be. Having an anxiety disorder is tough, and the urge to just curl up in a hole and hide until this is all over is great. But I am a perfectionist, type A, incredibly driven person. So, I think my personality won this battle and really taught me how much I can handle.

Sure, there are still tough days. I got my last paycheck in the mail yesterday and of course my boss went back on what he said he was going to do last week. I have 53 hours of unused sick/safe time because the chicken butt decided to use up all of my vacation time instead. So, my paycheck was not any more than usual which means no severance, nothing. Just “bye, we don’t want you anymore, here’s a kick in the pants on the way out”

I’ve also learned how patient I am capable of being. It surprises people because I was an infant teacher for 12 years before my 7 months in the toddler room was cut short, but I do not have an infinte amount of patience. Usually, though, my impatience is reserved for myself. I can be all “oh, it doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it, it’s fine” with other people, but then I do the same thing and I refuse to give myself a modicum of patience for it. But this week especially, but during this whole pandemic, I have had to be incredibly patient with myself. Give myself time to adjust to new situations, new experiences, new routines. I’m very surprised at how much patience I have with my nephews’ constant need to make noise. If it isn’t them shouting, it’s their screens, or it’s the TV, or it’s all three things at the same time. Right now, all three things are happening – but somehow this blog post is also still happening.

Multi-tasking for the win!

What has this pandemic taught you?