Kelly Flowers

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What? You Haven’t Taken Up Violin?!

You’re not fluent in Chinese yet?

You haven’t purged your closet in a frenzy of endorphin-inducing productivity?

Weird. Me too.

me-during-quarantine-meme

I began this quarantine like any Type A personality would. I MADE A LIST.

With all this newfound time, my schedule cleared of obligations, my social calendar a blank slate, wasn’t it time to clean the garage and take up a new instrument? I’d been meaning to get to those boxes of pictures for years. This must be the time! My house would shine. Squeaky doors oiled. Windowsills vacuumed. “It’s gonna be good,” I told myself. “Look at the positive that will come out of this terrifying pandemic.” *cue Pollyanna smile*

This went as you would expect the first line of every joke goes. 

First, I watched a lot of news, checked a lot of feeds, learned a lot of virology stats and did a lot of hand washing. I devoured meme after meme and spoof after spoof. Other people were doing BRILLIANT things with their time!

dead fly

Then, every day, as I bustled through menial things that somehow took way longer than they should have and relocated my coffee-drinking butt from one chair to the next, I beat myself up about what a slug I was. Where was that gusto to workout every day in my living room? I did stuff, I reasoned. It was just not the kind of stuff that feels like anything at all.

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