This break from the hustle and bustle of my working mom's life has taught me how much this constant disruption distracts from my business. Today is the perfect example of what I mean.
I am writing this post while waiting outside of the orthodontist's office because my daughter is getting braces this morning. This appointment was added to my calendar yesterday. I said yes because I knew that there would never be a particularly convenient time, as my work schedule has not slowed during #healthyathome. The doctor's office is near a market that I frequent, so I planned to drop her off, grab a few groceries, and then write this article while I waited. The reality wasn't so smooth. We arrived on time, but the orthodontist wasn't ready. Knowing our wait could be ten minutes or more, I grabbed my laptop and started writing this article. I was creating the time table above when they called my daughter inside. I shut down the computer and drove up the street to grab groceries so that I would be back in the parking lot by the time she finished. Upon my return, I powered up the laptop again to continue my work. As she returned to the car 20 minutes later, I was trying to find the right way to express the cumulative impact of my workday disruptions. To completely clarify, during a one-hour block at my most productive time of day (I'm a morning person), I squeezed in 35 minutes of work, which resulted in the first draft of one-third of this article. I have to say that this feels very typical of my norm before the pandemic. Over the past weeks of #healthyathome, however, I was able to complete the first draft of a 500-700 word blog in that same timeframe because I could focus without interruption. It strikes me that what I am experiencing is similar to highway mileage versus city mileage in a vehicle. All of the stop and go actions in the middle of my workday reduce my efficiency, and frankly are often annoying (just like poorly timed traffic lights on a major thoroughfare). Several articles have popped up in my LinkedIn feed about the unique challenges of women trying to navigate the demand of work and home [HBR]. Although I live it and acknowledge it intellectually, the actual time tax of my operating norm had never fully hit home until #healthyatwork added suspended activities back into my day. It took me a few days of frustration at how far behind I was getting on work tasks and reflection on my days to figure out why I was suddenly struggling. I'm slightly awestruck at my ability to manage the competing demands of my pre-coronavirus life. These past two months have been a luxury of time and focus that I haven't known since my first child was born almost eighteen years ago. Thank goodness Governor Andy Beshear has a "slow" plan for easing our way back into public activities. My former schedule now seems so disruptive that I would be completely stressed out and even more behind schedule if I had to press the start button and resume everything at once. So just know that whether it is yourself or your employees, as things continue to evolve over the coming weeks, returning to old routines is not necessarily less complicated. And, the need for grace that we've extended to one another during #healthyathome may be needed even more as we transition to #heatlhyatwork. Now I need to marinate the meat for tonight's dinner before I jump on my next Zoom call.  At Christmas, in a desire to escape the cold and gray of Kentucky, my husband and I packed the car and drove our family to Florida. Typically we would make such a lengthy trip by flight. Airfare being outrageous for our family of four and weather being mild, we decided the promise of sun and sand was worth the 15-hour drive. We booked a hotel off I-95 outside of Savannah, planning to arrive just before dark to enjoy dinner and a good night's rest.
As anyone who has made the drive to Florida in the last few years can tell you, traffic is incredibly heavy. The six-lane highways do little to improve traffic flow as motorists and truckers clog the middle lane. Chaos ensues as speedy motorists weave to the right and left lanes to pass. To call it stressful is almost an understatement. As we merged onto I-95, we were hungry and delighted to be about an hour from ending our day on the road. Five minutes later, we were sitting in traffic that vacillated between dead stops and creeping along at 15 miles per hour. My older daughter got on her phone to investigate and quickly reported that I-95 southbound was red for miles and miles ahead. She learned that a motorist was killed while stopped in the emergency lane earlier that day, shutting down the interstate for several hours. Luckily, my younger daughter was also busy on her phone, finding us an alternate route. As we left the interstate to take US-15, our twelve-years-old daughter navigated from the back seat. US-15 is east of the interstate, traveling through small towns that offered various fast food options. We ignored our hunger, wanting to go as far as possible before nightfall. As US-15 ended and we merged with US-17, we could see I-95 traffic was still barely moving. It was now dark, we were past the time that we thought we'd be at our hotel and eating at a nearby restaurant, and we were on a two-lane road that we didn't know. And yet, we felt triumphant moving along at 55 mph and glimpsing through the trees to see I-95 lit up with the red brake lights of the bumper-to-bumper cars. I pulled out my phone and put the hotel's address in the GPS. We abandoned all plans to return to I-95 and committed ourselves to secondary roads. Two-hours beyond our ETA, we stumbled upon a commerce center near the Savannah airport with a lovely seated restaurant where we finally sated our hunger. The hotel was just a short drive away, and as we crossed I-95 and saw the vehicles moving along at about 35 mph, we were glad to have pre-purchased our room for the night. It was almost 10:00 p.m. when we checked into the hotel. Many travelers had fled the freeway traffic, and the front desk, unprepared for the sudden deluge, had a staff of one. Traveling with our daughters, we'd reserved a suite with two queen beds. My eldest went straight to the shower and then pulled back the covers to discover bedbugs along the corner of the mattress near the headboard. Frankly, I was too exhausted to be freaked out. My husband headed to the front desk to request a new room, and I sat down at the little table with my head in my arms, wishing for sleep. An hour later, after a long wait to speak with the front desk employee and insistence by my husband that two beds were required, he returned with keys for two suites scheduled for refurbishment, and thus not officially listed for occupancy (everything else was sold out). Both contained king beds, which we thoroughly checked for bugs before saying goodnight to the girls. It was almost midnight, and we wanted to be back on the road by 7 a.m. We still had a seven-hour drive ahead of us. Today, that event is a memorable story. In the telling, our ability to work together and ingenuity in the face of traffic delays are points of pride. Our shared exhaustion and chagrin as the second shoe fell at the hotel evokes camaraderie. The feelings of frustration, anxiety, and anger are faint memories by comparison. COVID-19 is an enormous detour that impacts everyone. We do not know how long it will last. We do not know if we will eventually merge back onto the path of our life before this event, or if moving forward will require us to chart a different course. It is inconvenient, uncomfortable, unknown, confusing, frustrating, exhausting, and stressful. And yet, unless you are one of the unfortunate people to die from this virus, this is only a detour. Like me, I bet you've successfully navigated many detours before this one. Reflecting on my family's trip reminds me of these tips for negotiating this crazy moment.
 This Century heralded Americans' love of reality TV shows. The recipe is straightforward -- villainy, controversy, deception, confrontation, and aggression played out at an extreme volume in a relatively normal context. Hyperbole for entertainment also found a cozy home in news outlets where shows like Hannity & Colmes (Fox News 1996-2009) set aside the traditional interview style for in-your-face accusations and character assassinations. And the pay-off was big. Hannity & Colmes was the second-highest-rated program in U.S. cable news for several years. This context is vital in understanding why, at this time, when the only certainty is uncertainty, you find yourself perplexed by the volume of rants and attacks. After two decades of normalizing this behavior as acceptable "communication," many people lack experience with civil discourse. Opinion supersedes facts. Being right trumps bridging understanding. And communication has become a one-way street. This moment in time will be remembered for the adaptability, ingenuity, improvisation, creativity, perseverance, and agility that enabled us to navigate the uncertainty. But imagine how much better things could be if this was also a moment of grace.  Here are seven acts of grace to make your corner of the world a little brighter for yourself and those around you.
ONE. Assume everyone is doing their best. TWO. Tolerate imperfection. THREE. Choose curiosity over criticism. FOUR. Ask how you can help. FIVE. Treat others the way you would like others to treat your parents, siblings, or children. SIX. Make messages of appreciation a daily act. SEVEN. Take a mental health break from media or individuals whose communication negatively impacts you. |
Archives
January 2023
Categories |
HoursBy appointment
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Telephone502-235-6791
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LocationMellwood Arts Center
1860 Mellwood Ave Suite 117 Louisville, KY 40206 |