I’ve written a few posts about getting ready to be back to “normal” life again (whatever normal means in the future). I know I have created some habits that I have used to get through this pandemic and being isolated that I know are not good. And I’ve slowly been working my way through some new habits and seeing what I could turn into something productive and what I need to work on switching.
The biggest new habit I have gotten very used to is being alone and not reaching out to others. While I am not always the most social person, I used to try to make plans with friends and see if there is something I can go out to do. Or I’d see fun events happening around LA and see if anyone I know wants to join me. But now, I don’t really do that at all. I have seen plenty of virtual events posted online (which I’m now trying to make more of an effort to do) and I’ve never really thought about asking around to see if anyone else wants to do the same thing. And even though I had the recent monthly challenge of being more social with people in my life, I’m still not great at doing that. It’s hard to think to make a phone call instead of sending a text. And maybe when things are normal again, I won’t want to do phone calls as much. But it’s still something I want to work on making feel more normal in my life.
The habit I’ve been struggling with the most in the past few months has been my sleep routine. When I was out of work, I got very used to staying up later than I’d like to and sleeping in a bit (although, for me, sleeping in is usually 8am). Once I started working, I had to get into a better routine. And while I have a much better habit of waking up on time and it no longer feels early, I’m still struggling with making sure I go to bed on time. And I know I’m not getting enough sleep these days. It’s affecting me already, and I can only imagine how much more it will affect me when I have more things happening in my life. This is a habit that I mainly need to fix since I can’t see how having a lack of sleep could be turned into something good.
And while this isn’t necessarily connected to my lack of sleep, I know that part of staying up too late is because I’m watching a lot more on my tv. I have been watching a lot of shows and movies to fill my time. It’s a good way to help pass the time when there is nothing else happening in my day. And just like sleeping in, this was a habit I was doing more when I wasn’t working. Once I started working, I didn’t have as much free time to watch everything I wanted to. And I had to look at my viewing habits and see where I could cut back. Right now, it’s a bit of a hard time to cut back on movie viewing because I have SAG Awards screeners to watch. But I know that after I’m done with those, I need to limit how many nights I watch movies. And the same idea with tv. I added a lot of random shows to my DVR just so I would have things saved that I could watch when I needed something. But I’ve slowly been deleting the shows that I feel are just filler shows and not things that I want to keep up with.
I know there are other habits that I picked up over the past year that may not be things I should keep doing when life starts getting normal again. And there are other habits that I started that I will try extra hard to continue, like cooking more at home. It’s a bit weird to keep thinking about when life is back again because everything shut down so quickly and instantly. But things will be reopening slower so there will be less of a drastic change. But I still want to be ready for whatever the next safe thing will be to do so that I don’t have to keep having adjustment periods as this year goes on.
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Looking Back At Some Of My New Habits (or Things I Want To Keep Doing)
Going From So Much Excitement To Normal In A Few Hours (or Life As An Actor)
Trying To Keep All My Good Habits (or I Need To Get Back On Track)
Struggling To Figure Out Challenges Right Now (or I’m Just Going To Try To Stay Hopeful)
