The last few days have been rough. I can’t concentrate on anything, I can’t seem to sustain a good mood, and all my fears and worries are magnified. It doesn’t help that quite a few of them are (or at least seem to me to be) in fact, pretty reasonable. This isn’t a good time to work for a company that relies heavily on on airport travel, for example. (Not exclusively, and we can get by for now, but somewhere in the background, I’m very aware both that there is a ticking clock tied to things picking up again, and that the timeline for “things picking up” is likely to be quite long.)

My major achievement this week has been defeating the Tyrant Nook’s vile debt bondage, leaving me free to concentrate on the aesthetics of my island. And speculate on the Stalk Market, and with half a million bells sunk in turnips, you can bet I’m tracking it closely. (This is a paragraph that will only make sense to Animal Crossing players, and I’ll enjoy finding out if I still understand it when I read it back in a few year’s time.)

The government “relaxed” the lockdown at the weekend. The instruction “Stay at Home” has been replaced with “Stay Alert” in a way that is confusing, stupid, meaningless, and a moderately transparent attempt to start creating a narrative that shifts the responsibility for anyone that dies during this pandemic back onto a public who were not “Alert” enough, as opposed to a government who did not manage the crisis well enough. Everyone who can is still to stay at home. Except for people who have to work (this now includes people with non-essential jobs that cannot be done from home). Who must do so safely. Exactly what that means is not clearly defined, and it’s all a mess.

We’re both still working from home, because we’re fortunate. But I’m definitely feeling a toll from the ongoing situation now – not so much the having to stay at home, but more in the fear-for-what-the-future-brings way. And sadly, I do not know what to do to shift that, other than move into the future, one day at a time.

Here’s hoping for a happier update next week.