I’ve been thinking a lot about my mental health as COVID variants (like the Delta variant) have increased over the last few weeks. My mental health has been easily triggered since our move and while some of the triggers are things I can’t control (like a COVID outbreak), there are others I can (mostly my routines).

Since I got my vaccine back in April I’ve been treading lightly with my own re-entry into “regular” life or society. A big part of this is that we moved just two months after getting our vaccines, so we’ve been knee deep in adjusting to life back on the east coast anyway. But, an even bigger part is that I just wasn’t ready to commit 100% to regular life. I felt skeptical of whether others were taking their responsibility towards their community seriously or whether people were just really fed up with being home and needed to be out at all costs. While I can’t pinpoint other people’s motivations or know their vaccine status, I can control my own personal decisions, how I move in the world, and what I expect of myself.

I thrive off of people watching. It’s one of the top reasons I love to travel. It’s why working for myself has always worked for me.

The ability to jump from one coffee shop to another has never felt rootless, quite the opposite. For me, my lifestyle has grounded me in what’s important — my ability to notice the world. The last time I sat at a coffeeshop to work without any worry of COVID was in February when we spent most of it in London.

The last few days I’ve been extremely melancholic and just very aware that not only did I miss people watching and the freedom of working from anywhere, but I was suffering as a result of it.