This is the midweek edition of Culture Study — the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen, which you can read about here. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing.
Am I the only one who still just can't commit to things in the future? My partner wants to buy season tickets for our local symphony that start in September, and I just can't envision myself sitting in a concert hall surrounded by other people in six months. Intellectually, I know that we will likely be vaccinated by then, but it's just been so long in this "new normal" that I get panicky even thinking about a transition to the next "new normal."
Yes! My sister is tentatively planning to come down the first week of May (we live in the sticks, she in NYC) to stay with the kiddo while Mr and I get a much-deserved get away. I've had one shot and will get the other in three weeks.He hasn't been vaccinated yet but may be able to soon. But anyway, the plan is for a very covid-safe (stay at beach condo away from other people, quiet beach time) trip. And still I can't allow myself to even think about May. Its like this magical thing in the future I can't trust to know will actually happen?
Getting vaccinated felt similar. Will it ever actually really happen? How will I know? Will I miss a call? And then I offered to volunteer at a vaccine location on the campus I work and they offered me one at the end of the day and I absolutely JUMPED at the chance. But it still felt so weird. Still does. I'm a week out from my first shot and obviously not fully protected but even knowing that I've begun the process is....its a lot. I kind of can't believe it.
Yes there's no way I am planning anything for a long time. It actually kindof suits me though--I'm not much of a planner and spontaneity is my MO so I'm hoping to keep that up.
I am very much a planner--my number one stress buster has always been vacation planning--so the past year has been a struggle. I want to go back to making spreadsheets comparing airfare options! But I just...can't.
I love vacation planning, I have a few fantasy weekends in my head
for late spring when I've had my shots and the neighboring states become a bit safer.. and then I'll plan the vacation for April 2022 that I planned for April 2020. But I'm far from ready to commit to anything.
It's a very hard decision to make. Despite having the same reservations as you do, I have bought my season subscription to both the ballet company and the philharmonic for next season. I feel by doing that, I have left a door open for the future. If I can't bring myself to go to the productions, I have at least made a contribution to the organisations so the season may carry on for other people. I'll rationalise myself into feeling better somehow.
I feel this. Our wedding is allegedly going to be in October - we planned for it to be in October - we have a date and a place and everything - but it's so hard for me to like, commit to booking a photographer or whatever. I just have this sinking feeling like it isn't going to happen. We'll get married one way or another, but the wedding itself feels really distant.
I fundamentally don't believe that I'm going to be able to get vaccinated. I realize this is totally irrational: at some point, they'll have enough vaccine for everyone, and even my fucked-up state can't manage to mess up distribution forever. But deep down, I don't believe that I'm ever going to be able to leave my house. I honestly don't know what's wrong with me. I think that the thought of reintegrating into the world is a little overwhelming, and I'm dealing by pretending that it's never going to happen. I'm also feeling a little envious of people who have been vaccinated, or who live in states that aren't run by incompetent and malevolent people and therefore can expect to get vaccinated at a fair and reasonable time, and maybe it's partly that I'm feeling sorry for myself and wallowing a bit. But yeah, I'm not planning for the new normal because I haven't internalized the fact that at some point it's going to happen.
I'm dealing with specific grief and trauma, relating to a specific, traumatic death, and I actually think that maybe pandemic isolation has been a little helpful for processing that. I appreciate that nobody has expected me to go on like everything was normal, and I think it helped me to have some space to process. But I have been really bad at predicting how I was going to react to things, and maybe I'll fall apart once I have to interact with people and whatnot.
I know some people who are in very similar mental spaces — it's your brain protecting you, doing the very best it can. And one of those people in that mental space got an extra dose of vaccine yesterday! It takes a lot of time to process that shift. And I do think that you're right: in some ways, the pandemic really has opened up some space for *other* healing and trauma, but only if we were able to make that space for it.
My toddler's 1st Birthday party in February 2020 was the last big gathering we had before everything shut down. She just turned 2 and I've been in this suspended state of excitement for all the things I want to experience with her- museums, trips to the library, swim classes again, going to the zoo, and on and on. I cannot wait for those things to happen but I'm also preparing for the wave of grief to hit me over the time we lost. I was a nanny for a long time and did all those outings with other people's children. I can't tell you how thrilled I was to start doing those things with my own kid and then suddenly it all stopped. I'm so goddamn angry whenever I remember the things she's *not* experiencing at this exact age with us or her grandparents or her cousins so I try not to think about it. But it'll hit me eventually and oof, not ready for that unpleasant tide of emotions.
Yes! I am in the exact same boat. I can't wait to take my now almost two year old daughter to all of the kiddy experiences. I grieve over the time she has lost with her cousins, too.
We didn't get to have the big first birthday party that I had imagined we would in June 2020...and now that a lot of my extended family has shown their true colors during this pandemic (being anti-mask and not taking COVID seriously to the point of even going out to restaurants after being directly exposed) I don't really want to have that big party anymore. That's a really dizzying concept.
My younger son turned one in May 2020. He started daycare in January 2020 but was home with us by the second week of March. I am so nervous for how this re-entry will feel for him. I had a very rough time in his post partum period and will mourn that fact for a long time. I am grateful that he and my husband have a absolutely beautiful bond that might not have happened if I hadn't been knocked back so hard. I anticipate the first cold my son catches will send me into a little bit of breakdown. Anyway, right there with you.
My daughter turned 1 in June 2020! I had a really rough postpartum with her, too, made worse by the fact that I could only take off for 6 weeks. Weirdly, the beginning of the pandemic was somewhat healing for me because I did get an extra six weeks with her at the beginning. But I just wanted you to know that I hear you and relate so much.
Before going to college, I had the hope that such a major life disruption would allow me to "reset myself", somehow escaping the socially terrified person I was and becoming someone else. That's probably why I went so far from home.
Of course, going to college did not change me overnight. I was still the same person.
I had the same naive hope upon graduating and going out into the real world. I guess I didn't learn. But it was worse that time, because it eventually dawned on me that I was not going to be handed any more "life resets" to pin that kind of hope on. Adulthood was just one interminable future.
But then the pandemic happened, and it has opened up room for the same naive hope that somehow life is going to be different. Except this time I don't believe it.
My pandemic related grief has decided to express itself in my rage at the state of my post-Texas-storm mildly flooded apartment. The actual week of the storm was fine for me. I had heat and internet so I was just bored and concerned for other people. But I had a big leak once the water came back and now I’m living in a construction site with zero ETA on when they’ll be able to finish the work and a full year of pent up anger and frustration has now, laser-like, decided to focus itself on my lack of drywall. I can’t focus. I can barely work. I want to scream, all the time. Every day I ask my apartment management when I can expect walls and every day they say “well we are closer than ever to determining that!” and I grow ever closer to losing my marbles the way I did back in April before I started doing weekly virtual visits with my psychiatrist.
I’ve been vaccinated. I can go into my office a few days a week for a few hours at a time if I like. I have options. But this thing with my apartment has me feeling more trapped than ever.
I think it’s a pretty clear psychological thing that my nice apartment sanctuary I’ve spent so much time in this year where I feel safe and protected becoming a hot mess I can’t control is why I’m teetering but then I tell myself, this entire state is a hot mess because of course Greg Abbott decided that the key to escaping his bad CPAC straw poll and the ERCOT disaster was to throw more gas on the Covid culture wars and toss out the mask rules and “open” the state and at that point I’m pretty sure my brain snapped into two pieces. I’m honestly not sure how any of us here are functioning. The only good thing has been seeing just how many different businesses and organizations have gone “nah, we’re gonna keep the masks rules for a while, thanks Greg”.
I feel for you. I live in a small town that I don't much care for, but I've built my house into a small sanctuary that I love. I don't know what I would do if my sanctuary came down around my ears. Bon courage.
I had a meeting this weekend that laid out in very clear numbers what the metrics are for a return to the office, and in so many ways, I am just not ready. I am vaccinated, my commute is relatively short, and I in no way want to go back to that life. I want nothing to do with a crowded subway or waiting for elevators that never come, or touching the handrails as I precariously descend to the depths of the Bowery station. But I cannot wait to hug my friends. I just might lick them.
Wow, you said it! As much as I’ve ached to be with my friends and faraway family, I’ve had this strong dread of things “opening up.” Just found out my sister has no plans to be vaccinated, I don’t trust anyone not wearing a mask (or two) and feel creeping rage when I see under-the-nose mask wearers. Sadness, loneliness, anger, grief, and dread of expectations beginning to mount up again. And I’m an extrovert!!
I'm kind of terrified honestly. Over the last year I've really leaned into my introvert, homebody, loner tendencies and I know its unhealthy, but I felt so content. My anxiety over work faded completely when it was just me or maybe me and a couple of other people who didn't interact in the office (I have essential in person duties once or twice a week). Now that we have more people working in person, my anxiety has come roaring back. I find myself actively avoiding people - not so much out of fear of the virus but out of fear of having to talk to them and it being awkward (it is always awkward). I've even come to not hate wearing masks (foggy glasses aside) because its nice to know that no one can see my face. Throw on a hat and sunglasses and its almost like my fantasy of being able to become invisible.
We cancelled our 120 person wedding that was for April 2020 and had a small, lovely mountaintop event in July of 2020. I am so glad we did it on most levels. We have no plans for a bigger celebration and my rage at not being able to have a bridal party and friends there, as well as my grandmother who later died, is just...it's incandescent. I don't know that I'll be able to go to any weddings for a while and thank god we're the last of our friend group to get married. I know, I'm selfish.
I also had started to really enjoy going to our little Episcopalian church in the year before the pandemic--the weekly ritual of it was wonderful even if me and Jesus will never be besties. I think that first Sunday back in such a sanctuary might break me. A place of sanctuary...what even is that? What about singing together (even when I just mouth the words)? I feel so tempted to just shut out everything that was in the before times.
"I feel so tempted to just shut out everything that was in the before times." Me too, lol. There are so many things I'm actually not excited to return to. I've told myself maybe I won't Our leisure time is too special and too rare to do things that drain us, rather than restore us and make us feel authentic and whole. That's why your mountaintop wedding and your church sound lovely and meaningful. I think that's the kind of connection I hope to strive for post-pandemic, whenever that may be.
YES! I wish for all of us more meaning and connection when this is all over. Krista Tippett from OnBeing encouraged listeners to do a lot of reflection and pausing around what during the pandemic *has* worked for us. The not being so busy, the leisure time, the appreciation for just being outside, etc.
I've leaned so hard into meaning-making experiences and how wonderful they have been. Every Friday we sit on our front stoop with our neighbors (6 feet apart) and drink and talk for hours when the weather is nice; I've let go of the shallow relationships that weren't worth the effort, my husband and I go for a long walk every evening. Rituals have created meaning and I don't want to lose that.
That sounds so nice! I've also mostly stopped focusing on shallow relationships and deepened a few of the more meaningful ones. So worth it. And that's a great idea from OnBeing; gotta check that episode out.
Right there with you re. attending future weddings. I can't even watch weddings on TV with their comical mishaps without being rude and snarky that these fictional people got to HAVE one.
Yep! I *love* our wedding pictures, but still feel sad that *so* many people weren't there and that we were so cautious the whole time. And then I think of it as an act of bravery and hope in the middle of a pandemic and that helps but god the pics of bridesmaids on instagram kill me.
All crowded together! Everyone's cousins in a room! I just cannot. We were able to have a small ceremony and very mini celebration at the end of the summer, when numbers were low, and it was beautiful and our few local guests stayed safe and I was very happy that we were able to do even that, but it's still a once-in-a-lifetime event that we can't ever get back. We jokingly say we'll do a big fifth anniversary party or something, but our international relatives who might travel across the world for a wedding are less likely to for a regular party, and that's just the way of things.
I’m currently furious. My dad had gotten his first shot and was scheduled to get his second this week. But my lovely step mother isn’t old enough in our state to get hers. My brother brought his new girlfriend home to dad for dinner on Sunday and then on Tuesday learned he has covid.
My brother has sworn up and down that he’s immune/probably already had it/whatever nonsense because he’s a cop and has been around people constantly: Flying to Florida to golf, going to whatever restaurant/bar is open/apparently meeting and starting to date this woman/etc. But meanwhile I’ve been living like a hermit for a year and just when it looks like the end is in sight...
I worry that all this anger at the stupidity and callousness of people around me is never going to go away. I got fed up at one friend group a few weeks ago and feel nothing but relief that I don’t have to listen to them now, especially since the last message I saw was about me “canceling” them. I know some people are desperate to get back to normal but there’s so much I just cannot get past.
We don't have any mechanisms to deal with this anger, we really don't. In a few weeks I'm doing an interview with someone who's thought a lot about these things, and I hope it'll be helpful, but in the meantime I'm just so sorry this is happening to your family.
I had a very secluded & extended maternity leave period in 2008-10, with a debilitating post-partum mood disorder, which kinda felt like all of this? I can say when I got back out into the world, I found things had changed around me in ways that I found confusing and irritating. Like the clothes women very slightly younger than me wore, or rage at my extremely easy commute.
Also - there were things that had happened in my marriage in that time period that I was never able to forgive or assimilate, though they were things that passed without much notice at the time. Btw my illness and my ex's expectations, there was no room to change anything, so I just kept. going. I imagine that's what the pandemic has been like for a lot of women, stuck btw a rock (pandemic) and various hard places (relationship expectations, parental division of labor, paid work or the lack thereof, ALL THE GODDAMNED HOUSEWORK).
That marriage never healed, though I spent a lot of time over the next 6-7 years working very hard to pretend otherwise.
One thing in this made me laugh a little: about clothing! I had to go out into the city the other day and had this vague sense of not knowing what to wear--it was bananas! Anyways I wonder how many other marriages won't heal after this; not knowing how to show up for each other is a profoundly lonely experience.
My first baby was born in June 2020; I have a tremendous amount of anxiety about integrating into the world...whenever it is that I'm finally vaccinated, I'll have had no practice bringing her to public places besides her pediatrician's office and the park? I cannot conceive of what parenthood is absent the restrictions of the pandemic... I feel like I have no idea who I am as a parent in relationship to the external world beyond our apartment. I also can't handle anymore disappointment about losing out on life experiences and shared milestones, so I've not spent any time thinking about what I'm looking forward to doing with her.
It'll just be like other newborns right after they're born: you'll try some easy stuff, then more extended and complicated stuff, but the GREAT news is that the diapers are just so much easier to deal with at this point!
Once again, I feel like you’ve managed to capture exactly the zeitgeist - I started feeling like this just last week or so, and it was intensified by Biden’s announcement about vaccines being available for everyone by May. Of course, I’m so happy about that, so happy that maybe we’ll see an end to this fear and grief and death up ahead - yet I also felt a sense of blind panic at the announcement, at the idea that life could be going back to ‘normal’ in just a few months.
I haven’t worn make up in a year, have barely worn any outfits that haven’t included yoga pants, haven’t ridden a bus or been to a party or gone to the dentist or participated in an in-person meeting. I haven’t set foot in my office since March... Almost every aspect of my life has changed. I don’t know how to not be in a constant state of enormous stress and fear and anxiety anymore, or how to go back to where I was before.
Going back, no matter how good and how much better things will be, will be work too - just like we had to all work to adjust to the pandemic. It’s like that concept of reverse culture shock - the strange feeling of dislocation you face when you return to your original country or culture after living abroad.
We have all been living in a lonely, strange country for so long. And no matter how much we might want to go back, it won’t come easy.
I got this feeling of panic too, from of all things an email from my old law school about how they’ll be preparing and expecting to return to full pre-pandemic campus life in the fall, possibly with some judicious social distancing and masking requirements in place, but otherwise full steam 2018 ahead. I haven’t been a student there in ten years and my heart started racing at the idea of being back in regular classes in more or less “before times” circumstances. I thought, this email doesn’t even affect me! Why am I reacting like this! Watching all of this stuff leak out of my spiritual pores in unexpected ways is truly bizarre.
I had to get a new headshot today for work and panicked this morning. What do I wear? How do I do my makeup? The photographer assured me that she could fix up my mask-ne (because how was I supposed to wear a mask over foundation and concealer without it smearing!?) I went out and bought new mascara right before because I haven't worn it in a year so I assumed it was expired. It was work to adjust to today, and it will be a rough adjustment in the coming months.
I have no interest in going back to my office, and the feeling of rushing back into this is so real. I know at some point I'm going to have to tell my boss as much—it's not just going back to the office, I don't want to move back to NYC—and I'm dreading the day we have that conversation.
Oh yeah, I didn’t get into this in my original comment, but I desperately would like to continue working from home indefinitely. Ironically (??) I had originally requested to work from home 1-2 days a week in February 2020 and been completely shut down by my boss at the time. Now we’ve all been working from home 100% of the time and it’s been a pretty wild ride, but it has totally justified my original request to work from home. I don’t really know what will happen in the coming months, and that’s stressful.
There are a lot of more thoughtful and introspective takes on emerging from our COVID cocoons (COVcoons?), and I am dreading the oncoming selective amnesia about things that we all experienced...but I am so excited to eavesdrop on strangers' conversations in coffee shops and restaurants.
Oh my gosh. The bureaucracy behind bereavement is ridiculous. My grandmother died in 2019 and my then-manager was shocked that I needed 4 days off. He seriously couldn't understand why I couldn't just leave early the afternoon of the viewings and take off the day of the funeral. Annoyingly, the company felt the same way - they only counted immediately family and family that lived in the same household as worthy of 3 days paid off - extended family was only given one day. Plus this policy disregards deaths of close friends and people who are like family.
Fortunately, when they realized how close I was to my grandmother, they gave me the one paid day and allowed me to take three unpaid days off. My manager felt bad, too - he realized he was biased as someone who lived 1,000 miles away from his grandparents that he rarely saw and not taking into account that others have grandparents who they are close with.
I asked the company to change their policy after me (she was my last grandparent so I had nothing to gain) but unfortunately the response was "we'll look into it" and they never did.
one of my first jobs was HR- not quite the right fit for me, but one of the small things I could do that I felt good about was approving anyone's bereavement leave requests as quickly as I could and requiring absolutely no proof, follow up details, or explanation of why you wanted as many days as you wanted out of the possible 5. I always wanted to be able to do more, and I don't think a career where I can only give out five days of bereavement leave is fundamentally 'for' me, but as little as I could give it felt good. No organization was ready for the childcare/general crisis that affected their employees in 2020, and no organization is ready for the mental health crisis that's going to continue coming.
Am I the only one who still just can't commit to things in the future? My partner wants to buy season tickets for our local symphony that start in September, and I just can't envision myself sitting in a concert hall surrounded by other people in six months. Intellectually, I know that we will likely be vaccinated by then, but it's just been so long in this "new normal" that I get panicky even thinking about a transition to the next "new normal."
I'm hesitant to plan things because I can't bear anymore disappointment and really don't know when certain events will truly be safe again.
Yes, this, I'm really avoiding planning ANYTHING because the scratching out of items in the planner last year was one blow after another.
Yes! My sister is tentatively planning to come down the first week of May (we live in the sticks, she in NYC) to stay with the kiddo while Mr and I get a much-deserved get away. I've had one shot and will get the other in three weeks.He hasn't been vaccinated yet but may be able to soon. But anyway, the plan is for a very covid-safe (stay at beach condo away from other people, quiet beach time) trip. And still I can't allow myself to even think about May. Its like this magical thing in the future I can't trust to know will actually happen?
Getting vaccinated felt similar. Will it ever actually really happen? How will I know? Will I miss a call? And then I offered to volunteer at a vaccine location on the campus I work and they offered me one at the end of the day and I absolutely JUMPED at the chance. But it still felt so weird. Still does. I'm a week out from my first shot and obviously not fully protected but even knowing that I've begun the process is....its a lot. I kind of can't believe it.
Yes there's no way I am planning anything for a long time. It actually kindof suits me though--I'm not much of a planner and spontaneity is my MO so I'm hoping to keep that up.
I am very much a planner--my number one stress buster has always been vacation planning--so the past year has been a struggle. I want to go back to making spreadsheets comparing airfare options! But I just...can't.
I love vacation planning, I have a few fantasy weekends in my head
for late spring when I've had my shots and the neighboring states become a bit safer.. and then I'll plan the vacation for April 2022 that I planned for April 2020. But I'm far from ready to commit to anything.
It's a very hard decision to make. Despite having the same reservations as you do, I have bought my season subscription to both the ballet company and the philharmonic for next season. I feel by doing that, I have left a door open for the future. If I can't bring myself to go to the productions, I have at least made a contribution to the organisations so the season may carry on for other people. I'll rationalise myself into feeling better somehow.
I feel this. Our wedding is allegedly going to be in October - we planned for it to be in October - we have a date and a place and everything - but it's so hard for me to like, commit to booking a photographer or whatever. I just have this sinking feeling like it isn't going to happen. We'll get married one way or another, but the wedding itself feels really distant.
I fundamentally don't believe that I'm going to be able to get vaccinated. I realize this is totally irrational: at some point, they'll have enough vaccine for everyone, and even my fucked-up state can't manage to mess up distribution forever. But deep down, I don't believe that I'm ever going to be able to leave my house. I honestly don't know what's wrong with me. I think that the thought of reintegrating into the world is a little overwhelming, and I'm dealing by pretending that it's never going to happen. I'm also feeling a little envious of people who have been vaccinated, or who live in states that aren't run by incompetent and malevolent people and therefore can expect to get vaccinated at a fair and reasonable time, and maybe it's partly that I'm feeling sorry for myself and wallowing a bit. But yeah, I'm not planning for the new normal because I haven't internalized the fact that at some point it's going to happen.
I'm dealing with specific grief and trauma, relating to a specific, traumatic death, and I actually think that maybe pandemic isolation has been a little helpful for processing that. I appreciate that nobody has expected me to go on like everything was normal, and I think it helped me to have some space to process. But I have been really bad at predicting how I was going to react to things, and maybe I'll fall apart once I have to interact with people and whatnot.
I know some people who are in very similar mental spaces — it's your brain protecting you, doing the very best it can. And one of those people in that mental space got an extra dose of vaccine yesterday! It takes a lot of time to process that shift. And I do think that you're right: in some ways, the pandemic really has opened up some space for *other* healing and trauma, but only if we were able to make that space for it.
My toddler's 1st Birthday party in February 2020 was the last big gathering we had before everything shut down. She just turned 2 and I've been in this suspended state of excitement for all the things I want to experience with her- museums, trips to the library, swim classes again, going to the zoo, and on and on. I cannot wait for those things to happen but I'm also preparing for the wave of grief to hit me over the time we lost. I was a nanny for a long time and did all those outings with other people's children. I can't tell you how thrilled I was to start doing those things with my own kid and then suddenly it all stopped. I'm so goddamn angry whenever I remember the things she's *not* experiencing at this exact age with us or her grandparents or her cousins so I try not to think about it. But it'll hit me eventually and oof, not ready for that unpleasant tide of emotions.
Yes! I am in the exact same boat. I can't wait to take my now almost two year old daughter to all of the kiddy experiences. I grieve over the time she has lost with her cousins, too.
We didn't get to have the big first birthday party that I had imagined we would in June 2020...and now that a lot of my extended family has shown their true colors during this pandemic (being anti-mask and not taking COVID seriously to the point of even going out to restaurants after being directly exposed) I don't really want to have that big party anymore. That's a really dizzying concept.
Oh yea- dealing with the true colors thing is going to be quite the dilemma on so many levels.
My younger son turned one in May 2020. He started daycare in January 2020 but was home with us by the second week of March. I am so nervous for how this re-entry will feel for him. I had a very rough time in his post partum period and will mourn that fact for a long time. I am grateful that he and my husband have a absolutely beautiful bond that might not have happened if I hadn't been knocked back so hard. I anticipate the first cold my son catches will send me into a little bit of breakdown. Anyway, right there with you.
My daughter turned 1 in June 2020! I had a really rough postpartum with her, too, made worse by the fact that I could only take off for 6 weeks. Weirdly, the beginning of the pandemic was somewhat healing for me because I did get an extra six weeks with her at the beginning. But I just wanted you to know that I hear you and relate so much.
Before going to college, I had the hope that such a major life disruption would allow me to "reset myself", somehow escaping the socially terrified person I was and becoming someone else. That's probably why I went so far from home.
Of course, going to college did not change me overnight. I was still the same person.
I had the same naive hope upon graduating and going out into the real world. I guess I didn't learn. But it was worse that time, because it eventually dawned on me that I was not going to be handed any more "life resets" to pin that kind of hope on. Adulthood was just one interminable future.
But then the pandemic happened, and it has opened up room for the same naive hope that somehow life is going to be different. Except this time I don't believe it.
My pandemic related grief has decided to express itself in my rage at the state of my post-Texas-storm mildly flooded apartment. The actual week of the storm was fine for me. I had heat and internet so I was just bored and concerned for other people. But I had a big leak once the water came back and now I’m living in a construction site with zero ETA on when they’ll be able to finish the work and a full year of pent up anger and frustration has now, laser-like, decided to focus itself on my lack of drywall. I can’t focus. I can barely work. I want to scream, all the time. Every day I ask my apartment management when I can expect walls and every day they say “well we are closer than ever to determining that!” and I grow ever closer to losing my marbles the way I did back in April before I started doing weekly virtual visits with my psychiatrist.
I’ve been vaccinated. I can go into my office a few days a week for a few hours at a time if I like. I have options. But this thing with my apartment has me feeling more trapped than ever.
I'm really sorry and I'm so mad, too, about all of this.
I think it’s a pretty clear psychological thing that my nice apartment sanctuary I’ve spent so much time in this year where I feel safe and protected becoming a hot mess I can’t control is why I’m teetering but then I tell myself, this entire state is a hot mess because of course Greg Abbott decided that the key to escaping his bad CPAC straw poll and the ERCOT disaster was to throw more gas on the Covid culture wars and toss out the mask rules and “open” the state and at that point I’m pretty sure my brain snapped into two pieces. I’m honestly not sure how any of us here are functioning. The only good thing has been seeing just how many different businesses and organizations have gone “nah, we’re gonna keep the masks rules for a while, thanks Greg”.
I feel for you. I live in a small town that I don't much care for, but I've built my house into a small sanctuary that I love. I don't know what I would do if my sanctuary came down around my ears. Bon courage.
I had a meeting this weekend that laid out in very clear numbers what the metrics are for a return to the office, and in so many ways, I am just not ready. I am vaccinated, my commute is relatively short, and I in no way want to go back to that life. I want nothing to do with a crowded subway or waiting for elevators that never come, or touching the handrails as I precariously descend to the depths of the Bowery station. But I cannot wait to hug my friends. I just might lick them.
Wow, you said it! As much as I’ve ached to be with my friends and faraway family, I’ve had this strong dread of things “opening up.” Just found out my sister has no plans to be vaccinated, I don’t trust anyone not wearing a mask (or two) and feel creeping rage when I see under-the-nose mask wearers. Sadness, loneliness, anger, grief, and dread of expectations beginning to mount up again. And I’m an extrovert!!
I'm kind of terrified honestly. Over the last year I've really leaned into my introvert, homebody, loner tendencies and I know its unhealthy, but I felt so content. My anxiety over work faded completely when it was just me or maybe me and a couple of other people who didn't interact in the office (I have essential in person duties once or twice a week). Now that we have more people working in person, my anxiety has come roaring back. I find myself actively avoiding people - not so much out of fear of the virus but out of fear of having to talk to them and it being awkward (it is always awkward). I've even come to not hate wearing masks (foggy glasses aside) because its nice to know that no one can see my face. Throw on a hat and sunglasses and its almost like my fantasy of being able to become invisible.
We cancelled our 120 person wedding that was for April 2020 and had a small, lovely mountaintop event in July of 2020. I am so glad we did it on most levels. We have no plans for a bigger celebration and my rage at not being able to have a bridal party and friends there, as well as my grandmother who later died, is just...it's incandescent. I don't know that I'll be able to go to any weddings for a while and thank god we're the last of our friend group to get married. I know, I'm selfish.
I also had started to really enjoy going to our little Episcopalian church in the year before the pandemic--the weekly ritual of it was wonderful even if me and Jesus will never be besties. I think that first Sunday back in such a sanctuary might break me. A place of sanctuary...what even is that? What about singing together (even when I just mouth the words)? I feel so tempted to just shut out everything that was in the before times.
"I feel so tempted to just shut out everything that was in the before times." Me too, lol. There are so many things I'm actually not excited to return to. I've told myself maybe I won't Our leisure time is too special and too rare to do things that drain us, rather than restore us and make us feel authentic and whole. That's why your mountaintop wedding and your church sound lovely and meaningful. I think that's the kind of connection I hope to strive for post-pandemic, whenever that may be.
YES! I wish for all of us more meaning and connection when this is all over. Krista Tippett from OnBeing encouraged listeners to do a lot of reflection and pausing around what during the pandemic *has* worked for us. The not being so busy, the leisure time, the appreciation for just being outside, etc.
I've leaned so hard into meaning-making experiences and how wonderful they have been. Every Friday we sit on our front stoop with our neighbors (6 feet apart) and drink and talk for hours when the weather is nice; I've let go of the shallow relationships that weren't worth the effort, my husband and I go for a long walk every evening. Rituals have created meaning and I don't want to lose that.
That sounds so nice! I've also mostly stopped focusing on shallow relationships and deepened a few of the more meaningful ones. So worth it. And that's a great idea from OnBeing; gotta check that episode out.
Right there with you re. attending future weddings. I can't even watch weddings on TV with their comical mishaps without being rude and snarky that these fictional people got to HAVE one.
Yep! I *love* our wedding pictures, but still feel sad that *so* many people weren't there and that we were so cautious the whole time. And then I think of it as an act of bravery and hope in the middle of a pandemic and that helps but god the pics of bridesmaids on instagram kill me.
All crowded together! Everyone's cousins in a room! I just cannot. We were able to have a small ceremony and very mini celebration at the end of the summer, when numbers were low, and it was beautiful and our few local guests stayed safe and I was very happy that we were able to do even that, but it's still a once-in-a-lifetime event that we can't ever get back. We jokingly say we'll do a big fifth anniversary party or something, but our international relatives who might travel across the world for a wedding are less likely to for a regular party, and that's just the way of things.
Same to ALL of this.
I am so sorry for that loss. I don't think you are selfish.
I’m currently furious. My dad had gotten his first shot and was scheduled to get his second this week. But my lovely step mother isn’t old enough in our state to get hers. My brother brought his new girlfriend home to dad for dinner on Sunday and then on Tuesday learned he has covid.
My brother has sworn up and down that he’s immune/probably already had it/whatever nonsense because he’s a cop and has been around people constantly: Flying to Florida to golf, going to whatever restaurant/bar is open/apparently meeting and starting to date this woman/etc. But meanwhile I’ve been living like a hermit for a year and just when it looks like the end is in sight...
I worry that all this anger at the stupidity and callousness of people around me is never going to go away. I got fed up at one friend group a few weeks ago and feel nothing but relief that I don’t have to listen to them now, especially since the last message I saw was about me “canceling” them. I know some people are desperate to get back to normal but there’s so much I just cannot get past.
We don't have any mechanisms to deal with this anger, we really don't. In a few weeks I'm doing an interview with someone who's thought a lot about these things, and I hope it'll be helpful, but in the meantime I'm just so sorry this is happening to your family.
I’m furious for you 😡
Update: Stepmom tested positive today. Dad was negative. I’m still so angry.
I had a very secluded & extended maternity leave period in 2008-10, with a debilitating post-partum mood disorder, which kinda felt like all of this? I can say when I got back out into the world, I found things had changed around me in ways that I found confusing and irritating. Like the clothes women very slightly younger than me wore, or rage at my extremely easy commute.
Also - there were things that had happened in my marriage in that time period that I was never able to forgive or assimilate, though they were things that passed without much notice at the time. Btw my illness and my ex's expectations, there was no room to change anything, so I just kept. going. I imagine that's what the pandemic has been like for a lot of women, stuck btw a rock (pandemic) and various hard places (relationship expectations, parental division of labor, paid work or the lack thereof, ALL THE GODDAMNED HOUSEWORK).
That marriage never healed, though I spent a lot of time over the next 6-7 years working very hard to pretend otherwise.
One thing in this made me laugh a little: about clothing! I had to go out into the city the other day and had this vague sense of not knowing what to wear--it was bananas! Anyways I wonder how many other marriages won't heal after this; not knowing how to show up for each other is a profoundly lonely experience.
My first baby was born in June 2020; I have a tremendous amount of anxiety about integrating into the world...whenever it is that I'm finally vaccinated, I'll have had no practice bringing her to public places besides her pediatrician's office and the park? I cannot conceive of what parenthood is absent the restrictions of the pandemic... I feel like I have no idea who I am as a parent in relationship to the external world beyond our apartment. I also can't handle anymore disappointment about losing out on life experiences and shared milestones, so I've not spent any time thinking about what I'm looking forward to doing with her.
It'll just be like other newborns right after they're born: you'll try some easy stuff, then more extended and complicated stuff, but the GREAT news is that the diapers are just so much easier to deal with at this point!
Once again, I feel like you’ve managed to capture exactly the zeitgeist - I started feeling like this just last week or so, and it was intensified by Biden’s announcement about vaccines being available for everyone by May. Of course, I’m so happy about that, so happy that maybe we’ll see an end to this fear and grief and death up ahead - yet I also felt a sense of blind panic at the announcement, at the idea that life could be going back to ‘normal’ in just a few months.
I haven’t worn make up in a year, have barely worn any outfits that haven’t included yoga pants, haven’t ridden a bus or been to a party or gone to the dentist or participated in an in-person meeting. I haven’t set foot in my office since March... Almost every aspect of my life has changed. I don’t know how to not be in a constant state of enormous stress and fear and anxiety anymore, or how to go back to where I was before.
Going back, no matter how good and how much better things will be, will be work too - just like we had to all work to adjust to the pandemic. It’s like that concept of reverse culture shock - the strange feeling of dislocation you face when you return to your original country or culture after living abroad.
We have all been living in a lonely, strange country for so long. And no matter how much we might want to go back, it won’t come easy.
I got this feeling of panic too, from of all things an email from my old law school about how they’ll be preparing and expecting to return to full pre-pandemic campus life in the fall, possibly with some judicious social distancing and masking requirements in place, but otherwise full steam 2018 ahead. I haven’t been a student there in ten years and my heart started racing at the idea of being back in regular classes in more or less “before times” circumstances. I thought, this email doesn’t even affect me! Why am I reacting like this! Watching all of this stuff leak out of my spiritual pores in unexpected ways is truly bizarre.
I had to get a new headshot today for work and panicked this morning. What do I wear? How do I do my makeup? The photographer assured me that she could fix up my mask-ne (because how was I supposed to wear a mask over foundation and concealer without it smearing!?) I went out and bought new mascara right before because I haven't worn it in a year so I assumed it was expired. It was work to adjust to today, and it will be a rough adjustment in the coming months.
I have no interest in going back to my office, and the feeling of rushing back into this is so real. I know at some point I'm going to have to tell my boss as much—it's not just going back to the office, I don't want to move back to NYC—and I'm dreading the day we have that conversation.
Oh yeah, I didn’t get into this in my original comment, but I desperately would like to continue working from home indefinitely. Ironically (??) I had originally requested to work from home 1-2 days a week in February 2020 and been completely shut down by my boss at the time. Now we’ve all been working from home 100% of the time and it’s been a pretty wild ride, but it has totally justified my original request to work from home. I don’t really know what will happen in the coming months, and that’s stressful.
There are a lot of more thoughtful and introspective takes on emerging from our COVID cocoons (COVcoons?), and I am dreading the oncoming selective amnesia about things that we all experienced...but I am so excited to eavesdrop on strangers' conversations in coffee shops and restaurants.
Oh my gosh. The bureaucracy behind bereavement is ridiculous. My grandmother died in 2019 and my then-manager was shocked that I needed 4 days off. He seriously couldn't understand why I couldn't just leave early the afternoon of the viewings and take off the day of the funeral. Annoyingly, the company felt the same way - they only counted immediately family and family that lived in the same household as worthy of 3 days paid off - extended family was only given one day. Plus this policy disregards deaths of close friends and people who are like family.
Fortunately, when they realized how close I was to my grandmother, they gave me the one paid day and allowed me to take three unpaid days off. My manager felt bad, too - he realized he was biased as someone who lived 1,000 miles away from his grandparents that he rarely saw and not taking into account that others have grandparents who they are close with.
I asked the company to change their policy after me (she was my last grandparent so I had nothing to gain) but unfortunately the response was "we'll look into it" and they never did.
one of my first jobs was HR- not quite the right fit for me, but one of the small things I could do that I felt good about was approving anyone's bereavement leave requests as quickly as I could and requiring absolutely no proof, follow up details, or explanation of why you wanted as many days as you wanted out of the possible 5. I always wanted to be able to do more, and I don't think a career where I can only give out five days of bereavement leave is fundamentally 'for' me, but as little as I could give it felt good. No organization was ready for the childcare/general crisis that affected their employees in 2020, and no organization is ready for the mental health crisis that's going to continue coming.
Sitting on a plane in the middle seat with my elbows touching strangers *shudders*
We’re all going to be changed and we don’t yet know how