2020 Standards

Cartoon of me, a chubby brunette
 with grey streaks, in blue sweats and bunny
slippers, at the bottom of a staircase with
the caption "WHAT'S GOOD?" 

"How are you doing?"

Well, by 2020 standards, I'm doing great! I'm even doing great by 2016 standards, although my criteria for great was even lower at this point four years ago. But that was more personal and didn't belong to the whole world, so it's rather beside the point.

So, yes, my criteria for great in 2020 is pretty damn low. I mean, none of my immediate circle (me, the two kids who live with me, and my mom) have the 'rona, or if we do we're asymptomatic and blissfully ignorant, and we haven't really been anywhere we could get it. When going further than our own mailbox is a production akin to going to war in full plate armor because a) there's so much gear and vigilance, and b) it happens so seldom, it's unlikely that we've been infected.

But it's gotten to the point that even my therapist (whom I still see every other week via Zoom for safety) opens our session with, "What positives have happened?"

She has to ask this. Getting all my social interaction online means that there's the constant inundation of political and selfish and laughably deluded behavior, interspersed with little bits of positivity, some of which are toxic, too. I've seen a lot of inspiration porn lately, for instance, and LinkedIn has become almost worse than Facebook since just before the US election.

So she asks about the positives.

Because the negatives (even though they're mostly pretty minor) are legion because it's 2020.

Examples: 

Long term, no-one is going to fault Liz, 13, for struggling with distance learning. It's seventh grade, she's both special education and highly capable, and if she has to retake algebra in eighth grade, well... she's already a year ahead. It would be a pain, but not a calamity. We'll do the best we can with it (and have come up with a lot of stopgaps and bandaids and temporary solutions), but it's not the highest priority thing in my mind. Sometimes all that up there is hard to remember in the short term though, and it's one more thing.

Abby's grades are more of a priority than Lizzy's just now... because Abby is a high school senior. She loathes distance learning, but she is just a more laid-back person than her younger sister, and she's doing fine. Her midterm report was mostly As with a couple of Bs, for instance. But she hates it and although she has more outlets than Liz does (like Outschool's anime discussion group and a voice acting project she's part of), it's still one more thing.

For me, it's always income. My job with the school district is mostly sidelined because of Covid and I'm getting maybe ten hours a week. My writing gigs are few and far between right now. Abby's 18th birthday(!) is coming up and the SSA is so overloaded and backlogged that I have no idea if she's still getting survivors' benefits for her next month, even though I applied (for it going through high school graduation) months ago. I mean, we'll make it work as we always do eventually, and I have some good job leads, but it's... you got it... one more thing.

Even with all that, those coping skills I learned in the aftermath of Laston's death in 2016 are serving me in good stead. My sense of... equanimity, I guess... is higher, I'm not in a constant panic about everything, and not going anywhere or interacting with anyone (in person) on top of the 2020 stressors means that I haven't gotten an upper respiratory infection since about February.

We will persevere because if there's one thing we have learned, it's that we're doing great! 

By 2020 standards, anyway. And reasonably well by any normal standard.