Ask HN: How are you holding up?

I live in Sweden and I started a new job half a year ago. In many ways it's much better than my previous one. The only real drawback was not being allowed to work from home. For the first few months, that didn't bother me since I had a lot of fun socializing with my colleagues. Then, the pandemic hit and we were encouraged to work from home. My wife and kids are also home, since my wife was on parental leave.

I don't get out as much as I'd want to, haven't been outside the small town I live in for months. I used to take the commuter train to the big city each morning. I do miss friends and colleagues, but I'm surrounded by my family every day, do precisely the work I want and win so much time by skipping the two hours of daily commute. My son misses his grandparents, at first he had trouble understanding the reason for our new routines, and he has said he misses grocery shopping. I get that. Personally, I'm really happy we've been able to order online from our local grocery store.

I do have friends who were infected. Friends of friends who have passed away. But all in all it feels like I'm living in this weird shielded bubble with zero social contact outside of my family. It's surreal and I feel almost guilty for having been so spared from any real consequences of this pandemic. I was talking to a friend and we concluded that we both feel that this change has been primarily positive to our daily lives, and that we're so lucky to work in tech.

The Bronx Zoo had people, in cages, on display in 1906. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo

But I got a sudden and serious reminder yesterday that even if I'm doing fine, other people in my family aren't doing so well at coping. So I should be putting in more of an effort to help others through this.