Has the knowledge that a vaccine is on its way to all 50 states changed the way you feel about living in lock down during our 3rd major Bay Area covid surge? Are you more hopeful?

Or perhaps your mood has been buoyed by the SECOND surprise album release of this year by Taylor Swift? No? Must just be me and her hoards of fans… who I’m assuming have all listened to the album dozens of times by now, at least.

There is a dark side to Swift’s prolific creative artistic pandemic growth, however. According to a perspective in The Washington Post by Danielle Campoamor, we are all coping with the pandemic in our own way–although Swift’s variety of coping through work is often seen as inspirational and morally superior. Campoamor argues that other mechanisms for getting through the darks times–like binge watching tv or ordering takeout instead of learning to cook–are seen as failures, both morally and personally.

I do understand this argument to some extent, since the basic tenets of productiveness versus laziness also underly other important topical debates about depression stigma (and mental illnesses in general), chronic and invisible illnesses ranging from diabetes to Crohn’s disease, even the hilariously oversimplified judgements about working fathers vs. stay-at-home moms.

But ultimately, Campoamor know that the oversimplification overlooks some important details. Taylor Swift is able to work hard during this dark time by making music, by using her chosen art form to help process her emotions and turn pain into beauty.

Most of us are not that lucky. We might be stuck doing office work from home, or out of work entirely. Or maybe like me, an essential employee. Maybe you never get a day off from the grocery store where it’s a battle to get customers to wear their masks. Maybe you lost your job entirely to the poor economy.

I’m a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at a busy, urban tertiary hospital in the Bay Area of California. My job has both remained exactly the same and changed forever. One thing I can tell you for sure: nothing about my job feels safe. It is not a place for me to process my emotions about covid, or the sickness and death I see daily.

I wish I could be as productive as Taylor Swift in 2020, releasing 2 major albums–real breakthroughs that seem to anchor her during this time of trauma and chaos.

But unfortunately there are days where the only thing I can do in the face of everyone’s overwhelming mortality and poor choices. And that is: go to sleep. Take a nap. Sleep in. Tuck in early. There are days during this pandemic when the only thing that made sense to me was the idea that by sleeping, I could just while away time and hopefully wake up in a new place, a new healthier planet without masks, where we could travel and be together again.