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Things I’ve Learned After Being at Home for the Past 30 Days
I’ll be honest, I was not among the first to buy in to the concept of social distancing. I continually used updates from the WHO and CDC to justify why I didn’t need to stay home—I stopped commuting to work a few days before the social distancing recommendations were made, but I didn’t see anything wrong with gathering in small groups of friends. As an extrovert, those gatherings are the foundation of my social and emotional well-being, so I wasn’t quick to stock up on groceries and toilet paper and hole up in my house.
However, it only took a few days after the social distancing recommendations came down in mid-March for me to be fully on board. Since then, it’s been an interesting shift from spending 18 hours away from home each day to spending 18 hours in the same 150 square feet of my apartment.
Looking back over the past month, I’ve discovered some surprising things about myself.
I spent most of my childhood preparing for this.
Between living in rural New Mexico to living on the outskirts of a small town in northern Arizona, I’ve always lived just far enough away from a grocery store that you learned to make do if you forgot something like, say, butter. It wasn’t economical to run out to the grocery store for one forgotten item…