Last Friday, the senior director of my office at my day job sent around an article from Nature titled “Seven tips to manage your mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 outbreak.” Under the tip to “manage your expectations” during the outbreak, the article said, “This is unlikely to be the writer’s retreat that you have long dreamt of.”
My first reaction to that was a self-deprecating “lol, I’ve never felt so attacked.” But as time has gone on, that sentence has stayed with me, and I’ve kept turning it over in my mind.
The truth is, I did think I could get more writing done after I started working from home, and that hasn’t at all been the case. It’s odd to think I’ve been feeling anxious about the pandemic when I don’t feel totally conscious of it; in other words, I haven’t experienced the racing heartbeat and hyperventilation that I associate with my usual anxiety-inducing events like public speaking or making a phone call.
And yet, I have had trouble sleeping and concentrating. The idea of being on social media and promoting my books has filled me with lethargy. And of course, I haven’t written at all. I am incredibly fortunate in the sense that my job is not in danger, so I don’t have to worry about my own financial prospects. Yet I live in a state that has been hard hit by COVID-19, a state which, according to the latest news, will reach New York levels of hospitalization surges in one or two weeks. Obviously, even if I’m not consciously aware of it, I’m anxious right now.
These are frightening times. And it’s unrealistic to hold ourselves to high standards of productivity with so much worry in the background: worry about whether I or my loved ones will contract COVID-19, worry about how long this pandemic will last, worry about the US federal government’s godawful response to this situation and how much worse things will get.
This is all to say: I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately. I feel like I don’t have much to say right now. I hope everyone has been staying safe. Let’s all be kind to ourselves during these difficult times.
In the meantime, though I haven’t been reading or writing much, I’ve been avidly watching The Untamed, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll write a blog post about my thoughts on it in the future…?
E.S. Yu 