Checking In

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly meeting of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline relationships. 

I usually end that intro by expressing hope that you all had a good week.  That would probably be wishful thinking this week, wouldn’t it?  What a tumultuous week it was.  I started out on Monday thinking there was some small chance that I might be getting on a flight the next day for a pre-arranged business trip.  By the end of the week, we were in a virtual lockdown.  Not quite California’s “shelter from home” directive, but close.  Instead of a business trip, I found myself spending a week trying to help craft and implement policies for migrating a few thousand people to working from home. By the end of the week, I was conducting a virtual happy hour via video-conference for my direct reports so we could compare notes, refine plans and, honestly, blow off some steam. 

Of course, one thing we can’t compare notes on is employees who have tested positive, not because of lack of probably positives but because no one seems to be given a test regardless of how symptomatic because there aren’t any tests out there. Wouldn’t it be kind of nice to have some tests so our policy-makers could know how widely this virus has actually spread?  Maybe one of those poor benighted countries that wasn’t lucky enough over the last three years to have someone making it Great Again could loan us some.

Although I am going fairly stir crazy just one week into this shutdown, it isn’t lost on me that it was only about three weeks ago that I did a whole topic on “resets,” and now I seem to be going through an involuntary one.  After several months of too much travel, too much work-related socializing, too much drinking, too little rest, I suddenly find myself involuntarily grounded.  The house is well-stocked with alcohol, but over the last week I’ve had a whopping total of one lite beer.  Which I guess proves that my observations about my alcohol consumption being largely tied to work were more than mere rationalizations.  So, do I feel any better, any more energetic, after this week of sobriety and involuntary inertia? Nope, not a bit.   

 

I thought about making this non-voluntary, non-DD reset my topic for this week, but it hasn’t fully gelled in my mind yet, so I’ll push it out for awhile.  In fact, after having it in the back of my mind for two days, I haven’t come up with a topic that is appropriate for the times and something I actually have the focus and energy to write.  I did like Tomy’s observations regarding community and connections:

What's going on out there causes me to think about the idea of community. I am actually gratified to see how people are helping one another. Sure there are the crazies trying to hoard everything they can get their hands on. But more are in the reaching out, sharing, helping mode. I'm encouraged. We who come here are also a community. We are brought together by our common interests and the fact that those interests are, um, still outside of "social norms". My fondest fantasy is that some of you will make it through the membrane of anonymity and physical isolation and meet up and help one another. Aunt Kay and I had so many deeply enriching connections and I want that for you.

While in-person meetings of any sort probably are on hold for a while, I get his desire for connection.  It’s ironic how isolated we sometimes are even when surrounded by others yet our weird world of attenuated electronic connections thrives. Speaking of irony, I was going through some cartoons in my archive and found this one that struck me as having a whole new meaning after this little virologic

So, I think I’m going to just give up on coming up with an actual topic for this week and, instead, do a slightly less real-time version of the virtual happy hour I had with my team on Friday.  It didn’t accomplish anything very productive in terms of business goals and was, rather, aimed at checking in with people I’ve come to care about who are wrestling with an unprecedented situation.  So, how are you all doing?  How has the virus and associated social distancing and shutdowns affected you and those you care about.  Please don’t use this as a checklist of questions to address, but a few examples of things I’d love to hear about include:

Have you or any of your family or close friends contracted the virus?  If so, how are you/they doing?

For those of you who aren’t retirees, is your job site shut down?  Are you working from home?

How are you and your family holding up mentally/emotionally? 

Have you found any positives in this, like connecting more with family members, friends, or members of the community, whether in person or electronically?

Some of you responded last week with suggestions for helping others during this crisis.  Is there anything in particular you are doing or have thought of to help others get through this?

If you are one of the unlucky ones stuck in a “shelter at home” at home mode, do you have any plans for getting through it without going totally stir crazy?  Maybe getting to those unread books that have piled up on our bookshelf or Kindle?  Particular movies or series you intend to binge watch?  Maybe a new hobby you intend to take up during the downtime?

I hope you’re all doing as well as can be expected.  Please do what you can and need to in order to keep yourselves and others healthy and safe.