Although I picked up the news when it was announced last night at 8:30pm it's just starting to sink in this morning. And I need a place to put some thoughts. I want my blog to be a mix of web, tech and personal posts, but I have a sneaking suspicion that over the coming months it'll lean heavy on personal.

Here begins a flurry of thoughts that are rattling around my head, and hopefully something for me to re-read in years to come.

Don't go out

It was announced last night that the government has moved to strict enforcement measures to (try) to slow the spread of COVID-19 (as I understand it, to help relieve the pressure on health services, amongst other reasons).

The rules are simple enough: stay home, don't go out. There's exceptions to the rules, of course, once a day outside (I assume outside refers to public spaces, as opposed to your back garden) for exercise, we can visit shops for essentials, etc - i.e. let's slow this damn thing down. Makes sense.

I'm also the kind of person that's quite happy to be indoors for more days of the week than most would consider healthy. Then I'll go out, just for a drive to the shops, or something mundane and it feels great. I'm reenergised. I'll have to find a way around this. Thankfully we have a garden.

Keep calm, carry on coding

I'm lucky…privileged…fortunate (?) that my work has been always suited to remote working. In fact, I've always pushed my clients in that direction (and turned down opportunities that required me be in an office for multiple days a week. So technically I'm set up for this kind of work.

Except the background noise and fear and goodness knows what else weighs heavy on my mind. I'm finding it especially hard to start work on want to share work on JavaScript. It seems so… pointless.

Of course it's not though. I have to work. We have to work. I do have to carry. And frankly once I get started the distraction from reality is good for me.

It just feels very disjointed to get excited about my work at the moment.

The superpower of the depressives

In accepting some years ago that I really did suffer from depression, I've gone on to read other people's account of depression and one thing that I've long been able to identify with (and recognise in myself from a very young age) is the sensitivity to surrounding feelings.

It's also known as: worrying about shit you can't control. Like…the world coming to an end, or how single parents are going to struggle with this lock-down, or those individuals that are forced into a home that they're not safe to be in, or those families that live in a high-rise flat that can't even get out, or countries locking up that slow the transport of food in and out and the knock on effect on food distribution, or corporates sending emails to try to take advantage of your position in this pandemic ("run your event online", etc).

I mean, who needs that kind of stuff knocking around in their head? Not me, but it's there. Tugging at my attention. Weirdly this doesn't make me empathetic, it makes me feel stress and anxiety for everything around me, but my day-to-day empathy somehow becomes jettisoned!

I'm trying to acknowledge these feelings, and trying to then set them aside so that I can operate with my day. Not so simple, but trying.

Getting on with it

I'll get on with it. I've got client projects to work on. I've got side projects (…many!) to work on. I've got a family to be with. I've got books to read and music to listen to.

I also want to find the positive stories out there in my days. Julie (my partner) sometimes writes a gratitude diary. I suspect it would help to have something like that.

As for now, I'm going to switch out from human words to JavaScript and CSS words. Hopefully I'll return with some fun thing. And if I don't, meh, it's my blog, it'll be fine too <3