I feel I need to admit something:
I’m scared.
Now, you are probably thinking to yourself, “No shit, Sherlock,” given the state of *waves frantically at the world* and the possibility of a) horrible illness and possible death, b) horrible illness and possible death for people I know and love, c) economic collapse that ensures people I care about will be in dire straits or already are, d) do I really need a fourth?
The odd thing is, the fear I’m experiencing is not focused on those things. It’s something much harder to define. I figured I would talk about it here because chances are I’m not the only one having this particular variety of fear and if you are too, I don’t want you to think you’re alone.
I’m afraid of life after COVID-19. I’m afraid of the world opening back up again. I’m afraid of going back to the office. Of eating at restaurants. Of things being “normal,” or whatever “normal” is at that point.
Part of me wants nothing in this world more than the chance to go to the Alamo Drafthouse again – to eat giant soft pretzels and drink booze in a darkened theater packed with people, where everyone is laughing and gasping at the same thing. Shared experiences! Parties! Dinners out with friends! Church services! My Thursday coffee date! Sitting in Starbucks pretending to write!
Another part of me never wants to leave the house again. Wants to stay in a circumscribed little life in here and let the world keep falling to shit out there.
Out there everything is awful. It’s been awful for a long time now. In here isn’t really that much better to be honest – I can still see news, still hear about the awfulness, still read Twitter for five minutes and want to commit five felonies.
But in here my life is tiny and manageable. It’s days and days of sameness. Work, sleep, eat, watch a thing, read a thing, shower, sleep more. Do all of that again. I go shopping at most once a week. I know a lot of people are finding that utterly maddening, but I’ve been…fine.
I mentioned in a previous post that before all this began I was expanding my world. I’d started making friends at church, was joining groups and attending events. After years of smallness I was reaching out…and now I’m not, and part of me is SO RELIEVED.
It’s almost like time has stopped for a while and as soon as the world starts turning again so will time. The utter catastrofuckery of the coming election will loom even larger. I’ll feel like I have to address the goals I set for 2020 that I haven’t made a whit of progress on so far. I’ll have to deal with…everything. Right now I’m hidden away in my tower watching the world through a screen. I don’t have to touch it. I feel worry and sadness for people risking their lives on the front lines, and I feel the weight of so much death, but it’s not about me personally. It’s a tragedy I try to help with when and how I can, but I feel insulated in a way, cloistered.
Now the thing about it is, there’s not much I can do about that. Staying home and being isolated is kind of how you help right now. It’s literally the thing to do. Or not do. It’s not like I can just up and decide to be a nurse! And remembering the last few days at the office before I was sent home, the stress and worry all around me was giving me panic attacks and making me physically ill. Getting back out into that does not seem like a good use of my strengths.
I’m not judging myself for any emotion that I do or don’t feel – there’s no road map for any of this and everyone has their own way of dealing. Instead I’m trying to just observe them, let them do their thing without trying to squelch or magnify any particular feeling. I’m just trying to hold my own space and learn from all of this.
It is however distressing to feel this way. I don’t want to live small, but I also don’t want to go insane.
The societal fallout of the pandemic is going to be studied for decades. Psychologists, sociologists, every kind of -ogist out there will have things to say about the strange tangle of contradictory feelings that seems to be afflicting all of us right now. I imagine that prescriptions for antidepressants and anxiety meds will skyrocket (they probably have already) and the mental health needs of people working in health care and other essential industries will be paramount. (Well, okay, this being the US there will probably be fuck-all resources made available given how little this country cares about mental health, but in OTHER countries where the governments give a damn about the well being of their citizens that care will be paramount.)
It’s hard to say what long-term effects all this will have on me as an individual or society as a whole. Chances are a lot of effort will be spent to try and sweep it all under the rug and just get back to the deeply problematic world we knew.
I don’t want that.
Do you?