I’ve been reading some stuff lately about how the feelings many of us are going through is actually grief. I haven’t felt like I am allowed to feel upset by everything going on…after all, many have it worse! First off, the sick, and those around them. Then, the people who have lost their jobs entirely…and so on. Never mind that I’ve lost approximately 1/3 of my income, my favorite part of my career is completely gone for who knows how long, and all the fun things we were looking forward to over the summer, including a pretty remarkable trip to France…likely gone. And yes, others have it worse, and I know how lucky we are in my house to still have no issues paying the bills, to have a nice backyard, to live in a neighborhood where we can take a little walk around, and to have two adorable cats (well, this I’m not even working hard to boost up, I am thrilled.)

But the numbness I have been feeling the past two weeks or so…I find it moving into anger more often than I care to. Anger at our country’s leadership, or perhaps lack thereof. Anger, or perhaps jealously that I am somehow still working so hard during the week while so many seem to have oodles of free time. Anger that I’ve absolutely lost every gig and event and so has every single FREELANCE musician, but I only read about orchestral musicians in the news, or successful artists who are having to give free online concerts to sell their CD’s rather than a national tour.

I try to focus on the positive (weekends off! more time to cook! I’m only working 35 hours a week instead of my usual 50!) but then I take up all my extra time with worry and reading news. I realize those things aren’t necessarily productive but they happen anyway. I’ve also been spending more time exercising and reading, and those are good things. And we’ve had more online family chats than ever before because ordinarily it would be extraordinary to have a time that all of us were at home and available, and now it is commonplace.

How are you dealing? Do you also suffer from guilt of feeling down about how things are yet knowing that you are actually doing just fine and shouldn’t be upset?

Oh, and this extra cat hammock is just from Amazon. It was fairly easy to put on the tree…if you are handy.

We did get takeout from our favorite Mexican place on Friday night, went hiking Sunday morning at Greensfelder Park (it wasn’t too busy, but we did make an effort to get there by mid-morning to avoid potential crowds and planned to go elsewhere if it seemed too busy), and did some gardening as well. For the garden I’m working on getting our garden beds back into order—they go along the edge of the yard and there is a brick border but it was pretty buried so we had to dig it out first. Next weekend we will likely finish weeding and start preparing the ground for planting.

Today, as every day this week, is full of online lessons. I’ve been using Zoom, Skype, and Facetime with varied success. Sometimes I wear headphones and other times I don’t. Sometimes it works really well and other times it doesn’t. That’s just about how things are going right now. I do find online teaching so far to be a little bit easier.  The kids stay focused more on the computer than they do in real life.  I think having a smaller area to look at for their lessons keeps them focused more, and of course they love screens! Thank goodness for technology in these difficult times.