Does it make me a terrible person?

I enjoy my lockdown work situation.

Am I a terrible person?

I read a LOT online during my free time. Social media, Medium, news sites, blogs; you name it, I read it. Since every possible pastime that involves leaving the house has been temporarily curtailed by The ‘Rona, that leaves me even more time to sit and read.

Understandably, those of us who partake in social media, we who write online snippets about our day and click the Send button, are opining about what the stay-at-home orders mean to us. I think it’s crucial for people to express these points of view, since the appearance of COVID-19 is going to be viewed as a major historic event. People in the future will be curious to know what it was like to live under a worldwide lockdown, and we owe it to them to give a contemporaneous account of how our lives were impacted.

We also owe those future people the benefit of our insight, as well as descriptions of how the changes in our world have made us feel. Whoever has not lived through these times will be ill-served if all they are able to access is a bland timeline of events. To make the information come alive, we who are living the experience will have to record our thoughts and feelings for posterity, to shed light on what life was like when the social distancing rules were enacted.

As such, I can’t help but contribute my own point of view to the mix. I am one of the fortunate folks who is able to work remotely while our office space is locked down. I work in an outpatient medical clinic attached to a large medical system. The entire floor of our building has been temporarily converted to house non-COVID patients, in the event that the hospital across the street becomes overloaded by patients with coronavirus. The intent was to give the COVID patients the beds in the hospital, and migrate the non-COVID patients onto our floor.

We were told on April 1 that we had two days to remove our personal effects from the clinic, so that the transition could take place. I dutifully brought a large box to work and packed anything that was mine, so it would not be damaged or misplaced while the clinic was repurposed.

Then I came home, and I have been working from my living room ever since. And I have discovered something about myself that almost makes me feel guilty. Every day, I am seeing people write online and speak on TV about the hardships that the lockdown is visiting upon them. They express how much they miss the things that are currently disallowed, or lament the way their income has been utterly disrupted by all the business closures. But all I can think of, when I assess my own lockdown life, is how much I revel in working remotely.

My revamped workday is an easy thing to enjoy. Reducing my daily commute time from a 3-hour round-trip to ten seconds is outstanding. Instead of leaving the house before sunrise and returning home after sunset, I am actually able to see sunlight coming through my front window on weekdays. Having actual free time after work, and being able to spend it in my own home instead of languishing at bus stops, is a pleasure. For the time being, I have even more downtime than I am accustomed to, because on top of not commuting, I also am not working overtime. A person could get used to relaxing in their own house, you know?

I am very cognizant that I am one of the fortunate people, in that I am still able to work full-time while not being put at risk of contracting coronavirus. I also am grateful that the income disruption I am experiencing, the lack of overtime pay and the suspension of two side gigs, is not a crippling blow. The bills are still getting paid and the groceries are still being purchased (presuming we can find them in the store). And, most importantly, my husband, parents, and I are all in good health. In short, I am well aware that having the ability to like anything whatsoever about La Vida Lockdown is a luxury, and I count my blessings that I can see positives in our current situation while others justifiably lament the difficulties that they are withstanding.

But while other folks are expressing their frustration at the changes coronavirus has made on their daily lives, I frequently think of how much I will miss remotely working once we resume a normal schedule. I feel guilty for enjoying myself in this regard, so I have kept this to myself (until now).

I sincerely wish that all the dreadful aspects of the lockdown were not happening to people. My heart goes out to the ones who are sick or in financial distress, and I adamantly agree that their well-being is just as important as mine. Therefore, once society gradually begins to resume normal practices, I will not complain. Certainly, I look forward to resuming seeing family and friends in person instead of communicating only via the phone and Zoom calls. I will also willingly go back to long waits at bus stops in the rain and snow, working all kinds of extra hours, and only seeing the sun come through my front window on the weekends. We need the world to be healthy and thriving, physically and financially, and that is the only way we are going to achieve it, so I will not bemoan my fate.

But boy, am I ever going to miss the ten-second commutes. Son of a gun, but are those ever nice.