I don’t know about you, but I’ve been able to establish some relatively healthy boundaries and habits over the past few lockdowns. It’s one of the good things to come out of this overall really bad thing.

But I’m worried all these boundaries I’ve set and improved upon might just come crashing down after society opens up again and we’re allowed to go back out to “normal.”

Will these habits stick? Am I a changed person now? Or was all the work just a result of imposed boundaries from an outside source? Like how when you’re in school, it’s easy to meet deadlines because there are consequences if you don’t finish the work on time. But when you’re self-employed… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When you have nothing else to work on, you can stay home and work on yourself.

I can one hundred percent turn down a Zoom show. No problem. Easy. There’s just too much Zoom!

But a one-off improv show at SoCap on a Wednesday night when I know I have a lot of stuff to do the next day, but maybe I’ll stay late and have a drink and catch up because what the hell, it’s “networking” and comedian friends are so friggin’ funny and hey, I haven’t seen them in two friggin’ years so OK maybe I’ll just have one…

What do you want? I’m an extrovert. This has been really hard for us.

CUT TO: It’s 3AM on the QEW and maybe I should just crash at my brother’s because I’ve got to be back in the City tomorrow… But no, I can’t wake him up now because he has to be up in three hours to go to work…I’ll just go home. I’ll grab a Coke to keep me awake for the rest of the drive, and heck, why not some nuggets too?

Pretty typical of the way things used to be.

Over the past little while, I’ve formed way better habits around:

• Accounting & financial knowhow
• Eating at home regularly
• Getting the right amount of sleep (more than enough, in fact)
• Exercising more regularly and getting more fresh air
• More quality time with my husband (not like that pervs. I’m talking marathoning It’s Always Sunny because it counts as R&D in my line of work.)

I’m having a hard time not worrying about what comes after all of this. I’m getting my 1st dose of vaccine on Thursday, bringing me one step closer to “back to life, back to reality.”

So, when this is all done, will all this hard work fly out the window? Or am doomed to fall back into old habits?

Have I really changed that much?

When it comes time to go back to normal, will YOU want it to?