#MicroblogMondays: The (Pandemic) Time Warp

Obvious subtitle:  "(Let's NOT do that one again...!)"  ;) 

Modern Mrs. Darcy recently flagged an article from The Cut titled "The Pandemic Skip." (If you hit a paywall, try this link instead.) Summarized MMD:  "COVID warps our perception of time, but what do we make of the years we “missed?” " 

Sample passage: 

That COVID warped our perception of time is well established — studies show that stressful experiences tend to make it feel unclear how much time is passing, especially when one is confined to one’s home for months on end. It felt fast, it felt slow, it’s now hard to remember at all. With some time and space from that urgent, panicked period (did that happen yesterday or the day before? How long has it been since I’ve seen another person?), some new questions have started to come up. Like, if we slept through three years of normal life development, how old are we exactly?

This pandemic skip — the strange sensation that our bodies might be a step out of sync with our minds — happened to people of all ages. We’ve heard of those freshmen in high school, who, never having attended middle school, went back to their classrooms punching each other like 12-year-olds. A friend skipped from 57 to 60 and, when she started dressing up to leave the house again, realized she felt distinctly out of sorts in her clothes — her dresses felt suddenly too short or too colorful. (At 57, she said, patterns felt ironic. At 60, they didn’t.) My skip, I realized, had carried me swiftly through what would have been my last couple years of socially permissible carelessness. And what I’d dropped into didn’t especially appeal, particularly after having been trapped in the house-cats-in-a-bag style for three years: real adulthood with all its attendant concerns.  

I remembered a discussion in a similar vein on another forum, and hunted it down. It stemmed from an article on The Oldster Substack, titled "The (Pandemic) Time Warp" (and tickled me by including a YouTube link to "The Time Warp" from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," lol).  Sample passage: 

All the worrying and isolation and grief and illness have definitely taken a toll on me, physically and mentally. I saw it coming; I remember being so scared in those first months of lockdown that my limbs sometimes shook uncontrollably at night in bed. When I wasn’t panicking about the imminent dangers, I was panicking about more long-term ones; I often thought, This constant anxiety is going to make me older than my years.

And now I think maybe it has. In the wake of the past three years, my joints are achier, I’ve got more wrinkles, my hair is grayer, and I’ve lost more of it. I’m exhausted all the time, yet so anxious still that I have difficulty sleeping through the night.

The question posed on the forum was: "Regardless of your position on how our governments handled/are handling this, how has the experience of living through a pandemic altered you?"   

My own response (in part):  

The first comment I saw [on the Substack article] expressed my thoughts exactly:   

"I don't feel it aged me, I feel it robbed me. When you're retired and in good health, these are the years you want to spend traveling, take these long breaks to discover other places and people, and that got taken away for about 2 years." 

(Make that 3.)  I thought by this point in our retirement, we'd have been doing some of the travelling we keep saying we want to do -- and that just hasn't happened.  I particularly resent that the pandemic robbed me of precious time with my parents. They are 82 & (almost) 84 and live 1000 miles away -- and there was almost 2 years when travel restrictions meant I could not get home to see them (when we usually go twice a year, Christmas and summertime). I am more & more aware that my time with them is limited and rapidly dwindling. 

My husband & I are/were generally homebodies -- but the past three years kind of took that to extremes...!  We've still continued to be very careful, much more so than most of the people around us -- although we've been getting out a bit more lately (wearing masks in public places indoors), now that nicer weather is here....  It's nice to be getting out a little again while still staying (relatively) safe.  

How about you? 

I feel compelled to add this P.S. from The Oldster article (as if it really needed to be said...): 

PS I feel compelled to note here that the pandemic isn’t exactly over. We’re now in a time of greater freedom of movement, when there are more situations in which it feels safe to gather with others, and I am glad for it. But contracting Covid remains a risk, especially for those who are older, immunocompromised, or disabled, and there are people suffering with long Covid.

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.