Feeling All the Feels This Quarantine Season

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These past few weeks I have been feeling:

  1. Anxious: Will I get this? Will someone I know get this? If we do get it, how sick will we be? Will I spread this unknowingly? Will I spread this because of some careless mistake? Why can’t I stop touching my face? Does ordering online help small businesses or put individuals at risk? 
  2. Aggravated:  I am irritated with my kids, my spouse, close quarters, people who  aren’t social distancing enough, my parents who aren’t as careful as I would like them to be, the hoarding of grocery store supplies, any weather that is not sunny and mild.
  3. Grateful: Communities coming together and share ideas for everything under the sun makes me smile. Thank heavens for the internet with all of its science and memes. Watching essential personnel who are getting it done fills me with pride in my fellow humans. My family is healthy. My pets are adorable and fun.
  4. Awkward: I’m new at so many things like working from home, “homeschooling,” social distancing, setting up new technology in my home, wearing a mask in public.
  5. Motivated: Should I clean the closets? Learn a new language? Learn to make bread from scratch? Tackle that house project I have been putting off? Maybe my heels will finally touch the floor in down dog!
  6. Unmotivated: What day is it? How often does one really need to change clothes? I’m not feeling an at home workout right now.  How much processed food really is too much for my kids? Do the dogs need to go out AGAIN? I’m so bored. I’m sick of TV.
  7. In awe: Humans are amazing – especially the helpers. Science is amazing. Big data is amazing. The amount of food we consume during quarantine is amazing.
  8. Curious: Why do shows about crime and murder relax me? When will this end? How will this end? What will we be saying in 6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months, 6 years, 6 decades? What will happen with the elections? Who will be the winners and losers in all this?
  9. Frantic: I watch and read the news nonstop. Then I remember I am supposed to be working. Wait look at the piles of dishes. A child asks me for help with some long lost academic concept that I simply do not care about but must help with. Is it seriously time to make another meal? It’s sunny – “Kids hurry up and get outside!!!”
  10. Hopeless: There are so many people with job insecurity, food insecurity, safety concerns, suicidal thoughts or sick family members. How will they weather this storm?
  11. Hopeful: We will get through this. Battered and bruised and with lots of lessons learned, perhaps, but we WILL get through it. 

The list goes on and on… what are you feeling?

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Nancy
Nancy Casey is a family nurse practitioner and owner of Teen Health PDX in NE Portland. She specializes in the health of tweens, teens and young adults. She is passionate about talking to teens and their parents about the stuff no one feels comfortable talking about. She has three tweens and teens of her own that keep her on her toes and make her practice what she preaches every day. Because of this she eats more ice cream than she probably should and snuggles her dog more than he would probably like. She moved to Portland from Chicago 7 years ago and is still amazed at how many hills and mountains there are.