Monday Postcard #124 – Isolation Advantage

One week in isolation – I guess it has been challenging for many of us. Everybody has their own struggle in addition to the worries about the virus. Will remote work work out? How can we juggle the kids being at home and work at the same time. We miss catching up with your friends at a cute café or our favourite restaurant. The gym is closed, museums, (movie) theaters, shops as well. What are we going to do?

All we can do is to stay positive. Hence, I decided to look at the bright side of being at home – and maybe this will put a smile on your face.

First of all, no more daily commute. When the freezing wind is blasting and you can barely open the door of your car. We will not miss scraping off the ice from our car and then sit in the cold car which for some reason is not heating up fast enough. Nobody will honk, show the finger or yell out of their car to greet us in the morning. We do not have to squeeze into the train with hundreds of other people. There is no waiting for the next train which is also bursting with passengers. Nobody will stare on your phone curiously and check out your messages. The newspaper is just yours, no sharing with the guy who is creepily leaning towards you from behind to read the latest about another Kardashian scandal.

There is no sad saying good-bye at the kindergarten, no crying and begging to stay with mummy. You get a free stress training and simulation at home – while you and your partner try to work, the little one is throwing around their toys, singing the same song for 10th time, gaining pleasure in randomly closing the laptop and asking mummy and daddy to finally stop talking on the phone. Nothing will be able to shatter you at work in the future.

We have to cook our lunch and dinner at home. Where are the charming waiters telling us that if we do not like what they serve, we can leave immediately? Or those who refuse to take back our order and try to convince us that our cappuccino is meant to taste like salt water. We have to wash our own dishes and plan our meals ahead to make sure we limit the supermarket runs. Maybe this is finally the start of a healthier and more balanced diet? No more MSG-contaminated food from the canteen but healthy snacks like snickers and Milchschnitte in our coffee break. Maybe this is our chance to finally become gods or goddesses of the kitchen – this is the time to learn a new skill. We discover that there is a stove in our kitchen and that instead of storing our shoes in the kitchen cabinets (*cough* guilty of that one), we can fill them up with things which are supposed to actually be in the kitchen – chocolate, coffee and wine.

Finally we can save money by trying out a “home spa”. Our nails will look more natural than ever because it is just not worth it to bother applying red nailpolish all over your hands. Our face will smell like the dairy shelf because we can try out all the home-made face masks. Let’s all create a beauty trend with our “isolation hairstyle” – roots, messy buns and mullets. Paired with our stylish home office attire – leggings and our favourite shirt from high school which we can still “perfectly” fit in. Some may even get their beloved sweatpants out, even though they would never admit it. In 20 years, these will be trends which will be copied on the runways.

See Also

Postcard Special – No Panic Diary Week 3

This is the time to learn finally take care of your flowers. We can even make new friends by talking to them. It is also the time to train our willpower: how long can I stay off the news, how long can I not check Instagram. Pick up some indoor sports activities: sprints to and from the fridge from your laptop. Or even learn an exotic language – I guess I may start learning Swahili or Arabic, the frustration with yet another script and thousands of new words will keep us busy for the rest of the social distancing period.

Stay home and stay safe!