{"id":19349,"date":"2020-04-09T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T16:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=19349"},"modified":"2020-04-08T13:21:57","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T20:21:57","slug":"student-editors-letter-making-it-through-the-2-pm-trench","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/04\/09\/student-editors-letter-making-it-through-the-2-pm-trench\/","title":{"rendered":"Student editor\u2019s letter: Making it through the 2 pm trench"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIs that beeping in my head?\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after noon, when the lunchtime pick-me-up has worn off and morning coffee is a distant memory, I find myself asking this question.<\/p>\n

I look to the cat. He blinks, eyes glowing in a sunbeam; it\u2019s cute, sure. But his pupils are little black slits.<\/p>\n

A little creepy?<\/p>\n

Understatement of the century.<\/p>\n

He looks like Voldemort coming back to life, slithering out of the smoking cauldron. But I should go easy on my four-legged counterpart. He\u2019s all muddled up, not quite sure where the void is; he just knows something\u2019s off.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d comes a shout from the bedroom.<\/p>\n

That beeping is the garbage truck backing up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun College classes are currently online-only due to the COVID-19 pandemic (file photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The human is lying in the sun, too, reading a book. She spent the morning cutting up a shirt with a pair of dull scissors. Homemade-mask-making is a good way to kill an hour. Not sure how effective they\u2019ll be, though.<\/p>\n

In a way, it doesn\u2019t even matter if they get used or not. What matters is that we keep our merry-go-roundsspinning, our feet moving, our minds nourished, and, if needed, our fists at the ready. The 2 pm trench comes when I start wondering what we all do: how much longer will this go on? Is it time to cook a meal again? Good God\u2026<\/p>\n

I spent my 26th birthday yesterday in isolation. That sounds like such a negative word, and it can be: the truth of the matter is that these days, I have to work a little harder than I normally would to come up with reasons as to why it was a good day. The reasons are still there, just as they would be if it were a normal birthday: family, hugs, cake, deep belly laughs, and Van Morrison on the kitchen iPod dock. Today, my list feels bland: the sun is out. The fridge isn\u2019t empty. Most everyone I care about is healthy. As each day goes by, and the COVID-19 cases rise, less and less of us can say that, so don\u2019t go forgetting it.<\/p>\n

More than anything, I worry about people\u2019s well-being. That 2 pm slog is fuelled by novel rationalities that I\u2019m used to attributing to my own shortcomings. A sense of doom born from a lifetime of rattling a bottle of SSRIs every morning like some chemical alarm clock dissolving in the pit of my stomach.<\/p>\n

My depression doesn\u2019t have to always be depressing, nor does it have to be because of something internal. Sometimes it is, and that\u2019s fine, but put your time into working hard in those daily, petty, seemingly insignificant ways to keep the quarantine cauldron bubbling. If there\u2019s no heat, there\u2019s no bubbles. Don\u2019t be afraid if those normal positives aren\u2019t coming up to the surface with a pop, or if you just feel like garbage, a little cold, and have no energy. It\u2019s a natural survival instinct to preserve energy when the future\u2019s uncertain.<\/p>\n

Heat and pressure make change; if the heat\u2019s gone, muscle through with a bit of naked pressure. See what happens. I bet something will shift.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIs that beeping in my head?\u201d Shortly after noon, when the lunchtime pick-me-up has worn off and morning coffee is a distant memory, I find myself asking this question. I look to the cat. He blinks, eyes glowing in a sunbeam; it\u2019s cute, sure. But his pupils are little black slits. A little creepy? Understatement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-views"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19350,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19349\/revisions\/19350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}