Over-onlined

It’s been an interesting few months.

I have fluctuated from “This is nice, I could get used to working from home” to “Ok I need meaningful human interaction” to “I need to go home, this is too much” (when I got the interaction), to “This is great, all our meetings are online now!”, to “I am EXHAUSTED from looking at the screen so much.”

I think the frazzled from looking at the screen too much is the latest one. (Which is ironic given what I’m doing in this moment). I think it’s not just the looking at the screen – its the interaction we’re supposed to have through the screen that is leaving me absolutely exhausted.

Having said that, I am also aware that if those meetings had been face-to-face, I would not even have the capacity to be typing this now. I remember the days when I would end meetings with a splitting headache and the fatigue felt in my entire body, the suffocation of being in the same room as people and listening to one person speak – at least now we have the option of turning our camera off (in some settings) and I can doodle or do something relatively mindless to regulate some of the tension during the meetings.

Some thoughts that have been passing through my mind these few days are: Am I normal? Why does this seem to be so difficult for me? Who feels this exhausted from an ONLINE meeting? What’s there to be so frazzled about when all you have to do is sit in front of a screen and be present? Why do I need to feel everything so much and so intensely?

And yes, crying helps, but crying also makes me go into the “am I normal” loop described above.