We made it through two full weeks of working from home with shelter-in-place. It also happens to be the amount of time I would’ve been in self-quarantine regardless after getting back from Thailand. There is still a long road ahead of us. Throughout the two weeks, friends have been checking in with me constantly. Because of my living situation, it was assumed that I’d be lonely or stir-crazy. In reality though, we’ve sort of been built for this.

In the days leading up to today, I noticed a change in myself. The jet lag has come and gone so I knew it wasn’t that. I found that my productivity was dropping. I could get through an hour-long meeting, but find that I needed a break right afterwards. In a normal work day at the office, I could have back-to-back meetings with almost no breaks from start to finish and move to my evening plans with ease. These days, I’m exhausted for no good reason. I should be getting the best sleep of my life at this point now, but I’m not. A few friends described it to me recently: you feel this overwhelming sensation of dread, confusion, sadness, exhaustion, but you don’t know where it comes from and it’s not impacting you directly. You read the news, but it changes constantly and your mind is consumed with information.

It’s unexplainable, but I know this to be true. These aren’t normal work from home days. We are working around a pandemic and yes, in some cases we are lucky… privileged to be able to work from home, have a job, have a home, etc. But our minds go elsewhere.

This morning, I woke up to my Twitter feed as I usually do and I caught this segment of Hoda Kotb on Today. I didn’t even catch the whole segment, just this clip. Upon watching it, I found myself in tears as well. What she expressed on the air is exactly how many of us feel inside. I haven’t cried in weeks, but I recognized that same feeling almost immediately.

There are many long days ahead of us. We are three months in, but already this is the longest year. I hope that all of you can be safe during this time, but to take care of your families and more importantly yourself.