I’ve lately had flashes of thinking, “I could write about that.” I take that as a good sign, because since my last, half-joking post about how to do a pandemic I’ve mostly found myself with no desire to write at all. No desire to do much of anything, actually.

There are several reasons for that, which I don’t feel like getting into.

But one reason is that I worked my butt off for several weeks. I’m not a frontline worker (with huge thanks to all who are!), but I worked a lot. I was recently asked to introduce myself to a group, and I honestly drew a blank when invited to share about hobbies or interests. Do I have those? Does sleeping count? I have a very strong interest in sleep.

And then, just a couple days ago, I received this article about regression. It describes the stage that comes between crisis response and recovery. Even having lived through these phases before, I never knew there was a name for it.

What regression doesn’t have, however, is a cure. As the author says:

“It’s real and it is infectious, and it hits you like a hammer from one day to the next. The regression phase is uncomfortable. It’s also unavoidable and cannot be skipped. Understanding what the phase looks like and how you can move through the toughest part of crisis will help you mitigate.”

Hopefully as I make my way further through this phase, I’ll begin writing more regularly again.

In the meantime, I’ll finish with one, obvious thing that needs to be said. It’s interesting that the pandemic brought a need for people to stay home en masse, which also somehow opened eyes to another reality: for those with darker skin, it’s always been more dangerous to be outside and around others.

While I’ve found myself facing some legitimately shit situations these last few months, I am very fortunate overall. And that’s enough for now.