At the start of fall, a friend of mine commented that the pandemic has now lasted through three seasons. Goddamn, that’s one way of putting it into perspective. In the beginning, I’ll admit, I welcomed SIP. I mean, for one thing, I hate driving, so being able to tend to much of my work activities from the comfort of home was freaking amazing. At first, I was just tuning in on zoom— camera off and audio on mute. But after a couple weeks, I realized that I was kinda being a schlump… you know, attending while still half asleep and still wearing my PJs. As soon as I realized this was not helping me tackle the days full force, I shifted gears. Yup. Got up, changed into work clothes, put on my makeup, got everything all set up and arranged on the dining table by the kitchen windows (great lighting). For me, getting dressed and ready makes a huge difference.

I went into hyper focused mode. I took all the required classes and tests to renew my agent license (set to expire in November). Got that shit done months early. I also took some extra skills training and classes. Plus my brokerage was getting us on Zoom daily so we could be briefed on all the damn industry and legal changes. SO MANY.

Aside from SIP further enabling my workaholism, I actually appreciate that I’ve trimmed things down to the essentials. I used to be into organizing activities and dinner and travel and things… I realized that I actually enjoy taking a break from all that. It’s a lot of extraneous effort and work. Not that I don’t enjoy seeing friends but I dunno: turns out I don’t mind feeding my introverted side. I don’t really feel motivated or compelled to initiate anymore. John’s been making comments thinking it’s unusual for me but eh, maybe that was an entirely different life. I read somewhere that who you are now doesn’t have to be who you were five minutes ago. True dat.