You know, one thing that human society as a whole can agree with, is that 2020 has been awful, I don’t think it’s necessary to explain all the reasons why.

I have been “working from home” since March. Some people would think that being able to completely work from home is cool, but not necessarily. Even people who are full-time remote workers need some space and time to go out, interact with friends, go to a restaurant, go to a movie, etc, many things that given the circumstances I haven’t been able to do as much as I’d like.

This is not normal. I miss the people from the office, I miss commuting, I miss having deep or random or funny conversations at lunch, I miss randomly telling puns to my teammates and watching the reactions in their faces (the worse the reaction to pun is, the better). Still, I’m privileged to still have a job and being able to do it wholly from home.

However, given that my job is related to a big company in the travel industry, the uncertainty of layoffs has been floating over our heads for some months now. More like, the layoffs are a certain thing to happen, and the company has officially announced it will impact 25% of the global workforce, but there’s no further information regarding how will this impact be distributed.

I’ve been working here for 3.5 years, and people say that according to the law “the longer you’ve been here the less likely you are to be laid off based on a Last In, First Out principle”, but I guess there can be ways for companies to go around that, which makes me nervous.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. The isolation is something that takes quite a toll on me. I love going to the movies, I love going to concerts, restaurants, stores, libraries, etc. I love hopping on a train and going to random places in this country. Even if I have lived by myself for nearly 3.5 years, I never felt truly isolated. I had my time for myself to study or relax at home, and then I also had time for the world outside and others.

The plan is still going, but this is definitely a major obstacle. Two years have passed since it started taking shape, and some momentum has been lost compared to last year because of the circumstances of this year, but it’s in moments like this when I have to push ahead come what may.