The Anatomy of a Good Day, Right Now

A few months ago particularly good days were usually Saturdays, with an activity somewhere fun planned with Sawyer and I, maybe with friends. It would be arranged ahead of time and the logistics would be easy, since I have a flexible like kid who is up for anything. Maybe Knott's, hiking and lunch, the Zoo, a museum, something that got us out of the area and expanding our horizons. Most of the time the outing would end mid-afternoon and we'd do something for dinner, sometimes takeout sometimes a restaurant. Nothing crazy, but fun and something to look forward to during hard moments during the week. 

Now, my days are... fine. We are still staying at home and haven't had any time with people outside of our home in two months now. We Facetime, Zoom, and walk a lot, but, like everyone else who is playing by the rules, things are predictable. Like I said, most days are fine. We have our health, our routine, I have my work, I have Sawyer's education to manage, and I have plenty of hobbies. Some days are bad, too, I'll be honest (internally... I try to keep a happy face for my kid). Being fine is starting to feel really stagnant and sometimes depressing. I'm fighting it as hard as I can, but I genuinely like being busy and social, so more and more mornings this lock down is feeling more and more challenging. I hate saying that, since I know I am privileged in many ways, but I can't help how I feel.

Friday, though, was, finally, a good day. Early in the day I found out that two of my students were on The Today Show for their work with a voter registration initiative and got to do a Zoom call with Michelle Obama. I emailed them both and their excitement was contagious, as was that of the many colleagues I talked to. Sawyer and I had a good day walking and with his work, even doing a virtual field trip that my friend had put together for our students and shared with us. I had to host a Zoom meeting for my students and alumni for a video we are putting together and was so relieved when my speech went well and that we have 70 kids show up! I was hoping for 25, to fill one screen, and instead we had triple! The colleagues I am coordinating it with were equally ecstatic. Later in the evening I had a two hours book club with two great friends and it was so nice to caught up. For the first time in a long time I went to bed truly happy.

So how do I replicate that? How do I keep that momentum going (spoiler alert: back down to "fine" the next day)? I think there were a lot of key things- I felt productive, I felt like a good teacher-mom, I had plenty of social interaction, I stayed away from the news and social media more than usual, and I was able to get in time doing things I love. Granted, a lot of the things that made that day were so great aren't specifically easily replicated, and the fact that they all fell on the same day was coincidental. But as a whole, those categories, productivity, social interactions, less media, hobbies, and movement are the equation right now. I can work with that.