It’s Not You... It’s COVID

Sometime in the early days of the pandemic, I wrote myself a little note. It read, “Cory!!! Don’t make any big changes during the pandemic.”

At the time, my logic was sound. Life is full of ebbs and flows and it’s generally best to make decisions with a clear mind and when nothing in your immediate vicinity is burning (lol no pun intended San Francisco… i <3 u).

But here we are 6 months later with just as much uncertainly as before.

This is our life. This could continue to be our life.

We don’t know when we’ll go back to work. We don’t know when there will be a vaccine or if enough people will take it to reach efficacy. We don’t know if there will be a second wave or if it will be better or worse than the first.

We. Just. Don’t. Know.

Those four words are difficult for me to accept. I’m someone who usually knows.

If I don’t know something, I learn it. Or I Google it. Or I’ll ask someone with more experience. But the reality of this situation is that it’s new and unprecedented and no one has answers. All we can do is operate based on the information we have, when we have it.

For me, the hardest part of this moment has been the nagging feeling that something has to change.

Maybe everything would be better if I had a larger apartment and my bed didn’t touch my desk. Maybe a car would help me escape. Maybe I should become a digital nomad and hope a change of scenery will help me forget about the state of the world.

Maybe — or maybe the real problem is a highly infectious disease that continues to ravage the globe.

Maybe the problem isn’t your tiny apartment or your job or your significant other. Maybe all of these things that appear to be problems are just symptoms of a very real and non-imaginary disease.

It’s not you, it’s me.

Or rather, it’s not you, it’s COVID.