The lack of human connection or just the general inaccessibility to this, relative to how easy it used to be before the pandemic, I think has hit me hard today again after a long time. The day just felt so lonely and overwhelming and I don’t know why. There weren’t any notable differences in the weight of the concerns I had to deal with. Maybe it was all in my head. But I don’t really know what made me feel heavier today than all the other days. I had enough sleep for the night. I didn’t drink or take any other medicine to alter my mood and so there couldn’t be any hormonal inconsistencies. Nothing of significant trouble was happening in my emotional life – in fact, it was all really steady. I’ve had a good run of managing myself and my emotions which I’ve only learned to master during the lockdowns. Pre-covid, I could consider myself as emotionally volatile and would always need an external factor – such as a cheerful situation or a person I could talk to – in order to help lift my mood. During the quarantines, I believe I learned how to be more at ease with the turbulence and manage it on my own, and come out of them unscathed. I think I was even able to get myself out of most of these dramatic situations for the most part, which is even better.
But today felt a bit too familiar. There was instability in me and I couldn’t quite pinpoint it to any one thing that was worthy of the blame. This could be more troubling than having something major to immediately and easily assign the responsibility to – at least the situation and the strategy for alleviation would be clearer to me if there were one specific thing that I know could have caused it. But alas, there was none. I was just in a slump – in a low mood, unmotivated to work, and just wished I could take the day off.
It was a good thing I had people I could talk to in order to help me get a hold of myself. I just checked in on some dear friends – one that I truly missed, one who would always be my rock for when I’d experience these bouts of unstable negative emotion, and my best buddy actually checked in on me today without me prompting him for anything. I was really grateful for all of those.
What I find so magical in these situations is how it makes me appreciate all the little things I would probably take for granted on a normal day. In my improved handle of things during the quarantine, I don’t really take any of the nice things for granted anymore, but I just find that they’re all the sweeter when I’m in a slump. Every smile from any member of my family, an act of kindness from a close friend, a compliment from any person, anyone noticing anything good thing I do no matter how simple – these are all seen as delightful little gifts that really help paint my world a bit brighter, even if it’s done one shade at a time.