Quarantine quirks.

So many things are different now. It’s something that is so obvious it barely needs to be said. For most of us, we barely leave the house now, need gloves and masks and steel nerves even to brave a grocery store trip. We worry constantly about loved ones who are essential workers, who still have to go out to brave our dangerous world every day, keeping us all safe in one way or another. The big things in our lives, are so so different, but what I’ve found myself marveling at lately, is the small ways I’ve changed since this quarantine period started. 

For instance, tonight, I opened my freezer and there were three different kinds of ice cream in there. Three! I used to never keep ice cream at home. I know that my sweet tooth simply does not need that kind of temptation. Plus, I’m a big fan of cones so if I wanted ice cream, I used to go out. It was a special treat, not a normal thing. Until a pandemic hit, apparently. Now I am a person who keeps ice cream in her freezer and sneaks a few spoonfuls nearly every night. 

I’ve also become willfully sporadic about certain household chores. Dishes? Whatever, leave them until the morning, it’s fine. Tidying up my piles of books? Wiping down the sinks in the bathroom? Cleaning the kitchen counters? Why? It’s not like anyone is coming over. 

The pettiest of these little tiny changes? Replacing the toilet paper roll. It just seems like too much work now. This one is particularly fascinating to me, because my entire adult life, I have held the firm belief that whoever uses up the last of a roll must replace it with a fresh one immediately. Right? I thought this was just standard behavior, something everyone did as a reflex. 

think perhaps I consciously stopped when we were running so low on toilet paper that it was legitimately making me nervous, as a strange coping mechanism, one less way to have to think about toilet paper, or maybe a strange way of making sure not a single square went wasted. I’m not sure. But, we have enough toilet paper now, and I’m still doing it, for reasons that are a mystery to me. I don’t know why, it just feels like too much work now, and the world is falling apart and I’m too tired to be bothered. It’s so strange, to be going about my life and watch my new habits and not even recognize myself.

Has this happened to you, in one strange way or another? Let’s claim them as quarantine quirks, shall we? And then we can decide, depending on the level of annoyance they cause, if these quirks need to be addressed or can be let go for now. Personally, it’s my school’s spring break now, so I might try to start getting it together and addressing some of the household chore quirks now, see what I can do. But the ice cream? That habit is definitely staying for now.