The Joke

August 15, 2020.Reading time 3 minutes.

Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.
– Pablo Picasso

A workaholic extrovert walks into pandemic isolation…

Somewhere in that phrase lies a joke. Four months plus along and it has yet to reveal the punchline, but I can tell it is still there. Like everything else in 2020, I anticipate it will jump out and surprise me when I least expect it.

Today is my birthday. It’s a tough year for jovial festivities.

Birthdays ending in fives or zeros always bring a bit of reflection and one year ago I might have admitted needing to slow down. This is absolutely not what I had in mind. I longed for a proper pandemic-free vacation that required a passport. A couple weeks spent anywhere-but-here would have fueled me for months to come.

As it happens, a couple weeks turned into months and anywhere-but-here became only here.
And here I am.

For the first six weeks of this global pandemic phenomenon, I stayed home. My car decided to get sick with the rest of the planet. I had no choice but to do the right and recommended thing. In that time, I interacted (in person) with three grocery delivery saints, my property manager, one coworker who dropped off my monthly prescriptions and another who blessed me with a vodka replenishment, as well as one pizza delivery dude.

I am a talker. I love people time. Seven brief in-person human interactions in six weeks is the absolute antithesis of how I prefer to exist.

I also love to work. Who’s ready for live events to resume? Even if this pandemic pushes my career in a new direction, I am itching to go to a concert or attend a convention. All of this “leisure time” is making me crazy. Since the age of 18, I have not had this much… time.

Idle is an unnatural state I learned to embrace — within reason.

I needed a project to manage and I chose my home.

The time and attention to detail I normally give my clients, I poured into my apartment. There has been much painting and redecorating and decluttering over the last few months. I am no minimalist. My style is very much global eclectic based on my childhood in Kenya and travel adventures.

On this birthday, I’m happy to be here in my home. It is a place I can breathe, rest, and renew.
The joke is most definitely on me and my wanderlusting heart.

Still, I am more than ready for 2020 to cease with its shenanigans. Aren’t you?