A is for All the Feelings. I’ve talked a lot about anxiety in general and how it has effected me specifically. I think we’ve reached a point in all of this that most people are well aware that we are feeling stress and anxiety, so I am changing this week’s A. Story time. Working from home has really drawn attention to just how bad my home home internet service is, so I decided to take advantage of a different company’s new customer offer. I placed my order and the company sent me the equipment. I felt very proud of myself for managing this basic task. I woke up Tuesday ready to set it all up. I disconnected the old modem. I unpacked the new one, feeling determination that quickly turned to anger and despair. I didn’t have the needed cable outlet! Feeling stupid that I didn’t know I needed cable, I made a quick call to customer service and the kindest woman dispatched a technician. Relief. I reconnected the old modem, only to discover it didn’t work. So, there I was, in a house with 2 internet companies, 2 different modems, and ZERO internet. I spent the next three hours waiting for help to arrive. I spiraled through ALL THE FEELINGS. I FELT them ALL. I walked myself to the ledge and then talked my own self off. My internet was finally installed, but I wasn’t up and running yet…I needed a router. Sigh. Being an adult is stupid and hard. Curbside pick up at Target. The internet ordeal that began at 11 am was about to finally end…9 hours later. Wrong. Which leads me to this week’s B.

B is for Breakdowns. Yup. I was finally defeated by a wireless router. What should have been a simple installation became my own personal hell. After an hour of trying and failing, of unplugging and restarting, of factory resets, of watching videos and reading all the help articles, I admitted defeat. I gave up. I sat on the couch and disolved into angry, self-pitying tears. I cried over a router. I cried because I had such a first-world problem that I couldn’t solve. I cried because I had a day full of ALL THE FEELINGS. For someone who likes to keep all the feelings deep inside, feeling them is shocking! If you have read this far, you might be nodding along, feeling all your own feelings. Or you might, like me, be wondering what this has to do with the library. Bare with me. I am about to make it sort of connect.

C is for Connecting. We are going through something. We are all feeling all the feelings at any given moment. My colleagues and I have been working on mourning the loss of our exciting summer plans for the public. We have had to completely switch gears. We have had to make tough decision about what programs to completely abandon and which ones to rework for our new virtual reality. Prior to all of this I was part of a team working to put on the library’s first ever mini-con. RiverCon 2020 was going to be AWESOME! Last week we had a team meeting. We felt all the feelings together and then got to work reimaging our program. I am proud of what we came up with and I so happy that Ms Nicole’s RiverCon 2020 is still going to happen. Details will be forthcoming, but for right now I can tell you that virtual RiverCon will include interviews with comic creators and experts, an at-home cosplay activity, comic recommedations for readers of all ages and a virtual superhero storytime with Ms. Amanda. Finally, we are working on bringing RiverCon directly to you! On May 16 you can register for a RiverCon@Home kit, full of fun crafts, comic resources and hopefully some cool comic swag. Save the date and register here. We are all working hard behind the scenes and from our make-shift home offices to stay connected with our patrons. We are adapting and thinking outside the box and we are excited about what we are coming up with. Stay with us. We are here for you. We are all in this together.

~Megan