Some lost time

Today is Tuesday. Monday was just...lost. Gone down a sinkhole. At the time, I felt slightly under the weather, but life being what it is under the shadow of COVID-19 an the actuality of quarantine, every little health irregularity comes with a whole host of attendant (and unnecessary) anxiety symptoms and amplifications and stuff. It's not even really that important; the physical aspect of this wasn't the significant part. I became aware at some point that I was just done. Just so overwhelmed. So basically I just took the day off. It was good, I think, and needed. Stayed unplugged for the vast majority of the day. Even went out for a brief walk. Also, significantly, I spent the day nicotine-free, so that's pretty fucking great, too! Kept it going today, in fact, so...maybe this is the start of something. I'll start keeping a tally. That may help.

Anyway. So...Monday. Gone. I think I slept in, even, too, now that I'm thinking about it. Since T fed the cats, I'm not even sure I did any dailies. Maybe a little MM work. ANYway. Randomly today I found the term "the hell zone" which (a) serves as my notice that other people are having that experience as well and (b) gives me some terminology.

The Twitter thread is linked below and also reproduced here for posterity:

The quarantine state of mind is having 3 solid days where you feel pretty well adjusted, followed by a sudden, unexpected dip into what we call "the hell zone"

The hell zone is an anxious, semi-agitated state where you're just sorta "off" for the whole day and time flows like you're wading through chili and your hell zone will NEVER sync up with other peoples hell zones and that'll always make you feel weird and stressed out

- Dan Sheehan, Twitter 2020-04-18

So, yeah, the hell zone, apparently, is why I didn't do anything on Monday.

Today...has been weird. I woke up kinda on the early side, and I felt like I should try and get things back on track, so I go started right away with chores, and I slid right into dailies after that. That held until about lunchtime, at which point I really felt the desire to leave the house, so I went on a very quick grocery run and also picked up some lunch for me and T. Since then I've kinda been stuck in break mode and at times dozing off, so...I dunno. I may come back for another shift today, or I may just call this a half day. I got my dailies done today, though, so that's good. I just didn't get any pod edits done. I'm...behind where I'd like to be, but also some stuff isn't ready for me yet, and at this point I'm not actually behind on anything. So...this is procrastination, of a sort, but also maybe it's some perfectly healthy self-care?! So hard to tell what's what anymore.

In any case. This is an afternoon post to kinda...seal up the half-day, at least, if not the entire day. Not sure if I'll be catching the MM stream tonight or what. I'll probably just be picking up the edit first thing in the morning anyway, so...yeah.

Anyway. Life continues. Still need work. Onward.

Day 2