I’m sure that the Coronavirus pandemic will become a chapter in history books. They’ll list statistics about the number of people infected, the number of deaths, the number of borders closed, the number of jobs lost, the plummeting stock market prices. But the facts are rarely effective in telling the full story. The facts won’t tell you about the runners who trained for the Tokyo Marathon and never got a chance to run. The facts won’t tell you about the recovering alcoholics who couldn’t get to an AA meeting. The facts won’t tell you about the small, every day things we took for granted up until a few days ago. An office to go to, your daily conversation with the barista at the coffee shop, running with a group of people, turning on a hockey game at the end of a long day.

My story throughout this pandemic is one of extreme privilege - cancelling a trip to South Africa, though heartbreaking in it’s own right - is not the same as losing a job, losing a house, or losing a loved one.

But I would like to chronicle this time - on the brink of 30, and moving back to my childhood home for an indeterminate amount of time.

I hope you can relate to some of what I write. I hope you can laugh at some of it. I hope it can serve as a brief distraction. And I pray that we can all get through this.

DAY 3

My wake up time has gotten a little later each day - oops. I slept in until 8:30 and then spent my first 30 minutes of the day on the couch reading with a cup of coffee. My mom read the paper and i read my book until it was time to log on to work with a big bowl of oatmeal.

I had been really distracted on Monday by sitting at the kitchen counter which is right in the middle of the house so on Tuesday I cleared off my sister’s vanity in her bedroom and turned it into my makeshift desk. The walls are very bland. I might need to color myself a picture. I regret not bringing some pictures home with me!

Now, the basement is my gym and my sister’s room is my office. I refuse to work from the couch or bed!

I worked on my laptop for most of the morning, caught up with coworkers and checked in to see how everybody was doing. I sent a few emails, but things are just really slow and it’s depressing.

SWEATY LUNCH BREAK

Today’s lunch break was a good long sweat. At 11:45 I tuned in to Instagram Live for a “Stop, Drop & Jab” with a New York City trainer whose class I’ve been wanting to take. While the two minute plank and 50 jump squats certainly burned, the rest of the “15 minute workout” wasn’t much to write home about.

From there I transitioned into an ab circuit that my F45 studio had posted - I did 2 rounds for a total of around 12 minutes.

Next up was sheer torture that a friend had sent me and I will pass along for you now!

ROUND ONE

100 Squats
25 Burpees
50 3-Count Mountain Climbers (1 2 3 1, 1 2 3 2, 1 2 3 3, 1 2 3 4) *So it’s really 200 Mountain Climbers
20 Switch Lunge Jumps (per leg)
25 Jump Squats
20 3-Count Toe Taps (Use something taller if possible - I used my couch to really have to drive the knees up)
25 Push Ups
5 Minutes Jump Rope (I didn’t have a jump rope so I did 5 minutes on the treadmill)

ROUND TWO

80 Squats
20 Burpees
40 3-Count Mountain Climbers
15 Switch Lunge Jumps (per leg)
20 Jump Squats
15 3-Count Toe Taps
20 Push Ups
4 Minutes Jump Rope (My sister was on the treadmill so I alternated between stuff like high knees, butt kicks, jumping jacks, shuffles, jumping in place)

ROUND THREE

60 Squats
15 Burpess
30 3-Count Mountain Climbers
10 Switch Lunge Jumps (per leg)
15 Jump Squats
10 3-Count Toe Taps
15 Push Ups
3 Minutes Jump Rope (Or cardio of choice)

This took me 40 minutes - if you give it a try, leave your time in the comments! I might come back to it in a few weeks and see I can do it faster!

After I was reduced to a puddle of sweat, I headed back to my laptop and lunch. Leftover salad was clutch. As I sat and at, I also yelled workout commands at my sister which was beyond fun.

CONCERTS GALORE

Back in my “office” I was delighted to find that one of my favorite singers, Noah Kahan, was live on Instagram performing! I tuned in for the last few songs and it made me so happy.

To my surprise, as soon as that wrapped up, i realized that another favorite, Joshua Radin, was also streaming live! Had some fun listening to him too.

Then, at 4, John Legend had a little concert.

My parents came back from their walk to me screaming DERMOT KENNEDY IS LIVE ON INSTAGRAM! Definitely the grand finale to an afternoon of artists doing what they can to spread some happiness!

I highly recommend checking throughout the day to see if your favorite celebs are up to anything on Instagram. I also noticed that Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus were live together at one point.

Gotta love technology…can’t imagine what we would be doing right now without it! I just PRAY that internet providers can keep providing service with the huge amount of users flooding systems, working from home, etc.

STAYING SOCIAL

When I was done with work for the day I actually put some real clothes on to make me feel a little bit more human.

Then I got on the phone with my friend Callie in San Francisco and we went for a walk & talk together. It’s so nice catching up with friends but it’s also just a reminder that there is not much else going on in people’s lives right now - almost every conversation comes back around to coronavirus no matter how hard we tried to steer it in other directions.

Next was a quick Happy Hour Zoom call with some other friends (and my parents) before a big corned beef and cabbage dinner to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with my parents.

Obviously, the playlist featured Unicorn by the Irish Rovers and Galway Girl by Ed Sheeran.

We ended the night watching the first two episodes of Schitt’s Creek - though the concept of a family losing everything and suddenly finding themselves poor was a little hard to laugh at given the current economic situation.

Eventually, we switched to Trevor Noah’s comedy special on Netflix followed by YouTube videos of Jerry Seinfeld and Sebastian Maniscalco.