My 90 Days in a Pandemic 

You can call me Lari. To be honest, I cannot recall the last time anyone called me Larissa. 

I was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and currently, I am living in São Paulo, Brazil. Last time I counted I had moved more than 30 times (I have lived in different cities, states, countries). In fact, I always pack my things by thinking about how to unpack them. 

I love to travel around the globe and learn about other cultures. I also enjoy sports. I used to play basketball, but after I graduated from college I took some time off from practicing sports. About 3 years ago, I started running, since it is something that I can do anywhere, even when traveling. 

I have been working at Object Edge for more than eight years, and I’ve had the opportunity to work on many cool projects around the world. I have always worked remotely, managing deliveries with teams from all our offices. 

You would think that all these years of remote work would make me prepared for our current situation. Yet reflecting back upon when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March, it still seems unimaginable that the world has practically stopped.

Our daily lives are still impacted by the pandemic, and most likely will be for an extended period of time. While some countries may recover faster than others, it’s already clear just how significantly this has affected our lives.

When the stay-at-home orders began, many places were giving suggestions on how to keep healthy (body and mind). Accordingly, people started doing workout videos, cooking more, and those with children suddenly became ‘assistant teachers.’ People who were able to work remotely from home did so. 

Even so, the number of people infected by the virus, and those killed by it, kept growing. On top of that, the practical shutdown of the world led to economic suffering, with many people losing jobs.  

When I consider all of this, I feel as though I have no room to complain and should actually work harder than ever, as I am fortunate to be able to do so. When this self-imposed pressure becomes too much, I have to remind myself of an article I read back in April, Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure, written by Aisha S. Ahmad. The author notes that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and so we need to pace ourselves.

So that is what I have done: try to reserve time for myself every day. To be honest, I had expected that by the middle of May we would have started loosening some protective restrictions. 

When I realized that May was not feasible, I decided that this year I will have to be conscious to avoid public places, and most likely not travel. I am in one of the epicenter cities, São Paulo, Brazil, so I cannot take the chance of carrying the virus around to others.

At this moment, we still don’t have a perspective when it will end; if it will end. The best we can do is pray for it to get under control as soon as possible, follow the safety rules designed to prevent the spreading of the virus, and try to be kind to ourselves and to others.