Wake Up Call
By Carrie Jensen
I never thought I’d say this, but I think I miss my alarm clock. I don’t so much miss the annoying chime. What sane person would, right? It’s just about the worst sound in the world! But I do miss the pattern and predictable routine that it represented in my life.
7:00 am Beep, Beep, Beep! Hit the snooze button
7:05 am Snooze just one more time and then just one more time
7:30 am Finally drag myself out of bed, get dressed, and eat breakfast
8:00 am Get on my bike to ride to the office
9:00 am Turn on my computer, get my morning tea, open my email, and sort out my tasks
9:15 am Begin task 1, then task 2, etc.
12:00 pm Eat a quick lunch and go for a walk
4:00 pm Wrap up work and say bye to my boss and coworkers (working ¾ time)
5:00 pm Arrive home and make dinner
7:30 pm Veg out in front of the TV or read a book
10:00 pm Off to bed
Repeat
Then COVID-19 hit, and in an instant my lovely pattern was gone. While this might seem like a blessing for those tired of the “rat race” and bored with the monotony of office life, for me it was a nightmare. As someone who has suffered with anxiety for a lifetime, my routine is one of my coping mechanisms. When I feel the inevitable wave of panic that rushes over me at any giving moment, I have learned to move forward and just carry the anxiety with me. Moving through the routine and using checklists (thank god for checklists!) keeps me grounded and focused on one thing at a time, preventing me from freezing like a deer in the headlights over the simplest things.
So needless to say, the past two years have been quite a struggle for me. All routines were thrown out the window in an instant, and each time I tried to rebuild my routine and bring a pattern of normalcy, it seemed to crumble again.
After about six months of working from home and creating a new routine, I was laid off from a job I loved, once again throwing my life’s patterns into chaos. I felt untethered and lost, waking every morning to the silence of no alarm clock but instead the internal alarm bells in my head freaking out about the future and how I was ever going to get control of my anxious thoughts when the entire world around me was full of uncertainty.
Fortunately, circumstances next led to a wonderful opportunity for me to start my own business and do contract work for a non-profit—work that I’m deeply passionate and excited about. I essentially had my dream job but also one that didn’t include a predictable routine. And to top it off, my new work was in environmental education, confronting daily the realities of global warming, environmental degradation, mass extinction, and social injustice. It would be difficult for me to handle all these negative issues in “normal” times when my life was more structured, but in the past year it has led to one of the worst periods of anxiety in my life, comparable only to my angsty teenage years.
I’m now a year into running my own business and slowly forming new routines once again. And although it has been a great struggle, I think I’m finally at a point where I can see the positive outcomes from breaking my patterns.
Don’t get me wrong, I still struggle with anxiety every day. I still use checklists, and I’ve added in new coping mechanisms, like lap swimming three times a week (nothing calms my mind better than the repetitive pattern of swimming back and forth across a pool). But I think I’m coming to terms with how quickly things can change and how to better deal with life when it throws a curveball. Instead of seeing it in the negative light that my anxiety wants me to view the world, I’m trying to see it as a positive experience, one that can bring healing and hope.
I now have a job that is fulfilling, doing work that I find meaningful, even if at times more stressful. And if I can make it through the chaos of the past two years and find a new path forward, maybe the world can too. We may be facing what seems like insurmountable challenges with climate change, social injustice, and a global pandemic, but maybe this is our opportunity to break our patterns and work to shape a new world—one that is more equitable, more in balance with nature and healthier all around. I’m not going to let anxiety and negative thoughts control and limit me. The rest of the world shouldn’t either. Sometimes change is good. Let’s seize the moment and make the most of it.
It is a wake up call. One that ironically, for me, comes from turning the alarm clock off.
Photograph courtesy of Carrie Jensen.
Carrie Jensen is a landscape architect and environmental educator. She was born and raised in Nevada, and she has a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies with an emphasis in education from San Jose State University. She has worked for environmental non-profits and environmental consulting firms in the areas of education and landscape architecture for over 15 years. Currently, she runs her own consulting company, Urban Ecology Solutions, LLC and is an environmental education consultant for One Truckee River. In her spare time, Carrie loves gardening, reading, swimming, and riding her bike.
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