Every now and then, during these past five months, I’ve tried to make the habit of coming up with a handful of good things that have come about as a result of our recent lifestyle changes. Some weeks, the practice is easier than others. Other weeks, the list is very short. Here are a few I’ve come up with recently:
- I’ve been significantly less affected by seasonal allergies, given that a mask has protected me from pollen
- now that I’m only buying groceries once a month, I’ve become a lot more intentional about meal planning and about reducing food waste
- I’m pretty proud of the website building skills that I’ve acquired in just a few months
- my teenage self would be thrilled that I now own a bedazzler (although she would have assumed that the rhinestones would be affixed to jeans or shoes or hair clips, not face masks) (my teenage self would also be pretty shocked that a hoard of hair clips is no longer a determining factor of coolness, no matter how sparkly they are)
- I appreciate the “touch up my appearance” filter on Zoom (click the ^ next to the video camera icon, which takes you to “Settings,” then in the left menu go to “Video” and click the box next to “Touch up my appearance” in the first section)
- with a mask on, I don’t have to worry about my nose getting sunburned
- I wish I hadn’t had little to no human interaction for months on end, but since I live alone, I’m really glad to have a snuggly cat (even if she is a walking fur explosion with fish breath)
- because so many personal interactions rely on the internet, a friend from high school revived her social media profile, which led us to discover that we have both moved to Michigan in the past couple years!
- face masks are also handy shields against dust while cleaning the house
- it turns out that sourdough bread is pretty easy to make, so that’s cool (and tasty!)
- if there had to be a pandemic in my lifetime, I’m genuinely grateful that it’s taking place during this decade, and not during the 80s or 90s when email was a new concept and video calls were literally science fiction
- I feel very fortunate to be living in a home with space to film live streams–any other living situation I’ve had would have been too cramped or too loud to lead worship from, especially if other residents needed internet bandwidth to work from home as well