As we’ve settled into this new lockdown norm here in Melbourne there’s been plenty of time to reflect on things. The onset of this lockdown was supposed to give us the opportunity to breathe, refocus and reset. Whilst that notion might be true on certain days, there have been many others when my own personal focus has been on the things that I miss. I understand that it’s futile to complain about trivial things during a health crisis, but I am also aware that ignoring a feeling, thought or emotion doesn’t actually make it go away. Most of the time we need to acknowledge it and right now its almost as if we need to mourn the temporary loss of the things that we once took for granted.
For right now, I miss a lot of things. I miss being able to travel, having conversations with strangers, experiencing firsts of all dimensions, being able to embrace people openly and without a second thought. I miss being motivated and feeling hopeful. I miss having the connection points of family and community. There are so many things that I feel like I am almost grieving right now mainly because being in isolation feels just as that, being isolated.
I believe it’s important to be able to identify these feelings and acknowledge them publicly. This year has been an absolute rollercoaster and we still have 3+ months of it left. In a conversation I was having with a friend over whatsapp the other day I found myself proclaiming “what a frustrating time to be alive, seriously”. It seemed to resonate in a way that also shifted the perspective to be a hindrance or an obstacle that we are all jointly facing. This also raised the inability to do anything about it which leaves us feeling a total loss of control over something which is impacting our lives so severely. Any coping strategy that is out there will tell us that in order to change our situation when we are in distress, we need to take action to veer us off our current course. But the global and all encompassing nature of this pandemic takes the ability to stop it out of our hands and puts us at its mercy. The prospect of not knowing is the one which is affecting us the most.
The truth is for us Melburnians, there has been a level of fatigue which has set in that has been incredibly debilitating. The exhaustion of being isolated and away from our extended families and our local communities for almost 7 weeks has left a sensation of feeling adrift. This coupled with an expectation that once this is all over and we come out of homes, that life will go on as it did before with ease is a scary prospect. The actuality of that will probably be quite the opposite. We have effected deeply by this all and it will continue to affect us until the global threat has subsided.
When we finally do emerge on the other side of this second wave we need to be aware that we will be different. That the prolonged isolation and sense of fear that this pandemic has come along with is going to take a mental toll. That we will be hit with pangs of unimaginable sadness, of longing, of overcaution and many other things. We need to be prepared for the fact that we will definitely come out of this, but that we most probably will be changed. We should allow ourselves to feel this, to mourn for things we have lost, even if they seem trivial. We should acknowledge that is was hard, and that we will struggle some more in future but be proud that through it all we overcame, and we did it in a way where we didn’t ignore our emotions or push the fear.
Once we see the other side of this I want us to continue to check in on other people, on the ones we love. I want us to continue to be sensitive to the experiences, feeling and struggles of others. I want for us to remember about the sense of community, of empathy and kindness that carried us to the other side and implement this in the post lockdown and post pandemic world too.
Sx
I blog for Change. 