I’ve been having amazing conversations with people about WHERE we are right now in this pandemic adventure and WHEN we are heading toward something closer to the pre-pandemic normal life that all of us long for in our own ways. The conversations are revelatory—in the sense that they are huge billboard-like signposts illustrating the priorities, fears, and hopes of individuals. These conversations don’t answer my personal questions, but they are the building blocks of character.
We are what we dream.
The limitations imposed by the pandemic put priorities into perspective. We’re all asking ourselves, “Is this what we really want to be doing?” OR “Is this all there is?” OR “When will this end so I can go back to ‘normal’?”
If we set aside the third question—simply because we don’t know when/if things will return to normal—and focus on the other two; they can be a Rorschach test that reveals more than the straightforward answers to the questions. This, of course, holds true for the characters we create in fiction as well as the characters we meet in life. In a sense, we are what we choose to dream and the characters we create are what we choose on their behalf.
My conversations with friends and strangers—and people in-between—point towards a time of reassessment. It feels like the entire world is reevaluating. It’s like we’re all looking inward in a way we’ve avoided for years, even decades. Is it time for self-reflection or for a reckoning? Probably both. This manifests in all sorts of ways. People reassess relationships, careers, passionate pursuits, and daydreams with equal scrutiny. It feels like everything is on the table. People talk about retiring, changing careers, getting new degrees, diving into pursuits that were once only daydreams, moving to the countryside, moving to the city, shedding junk, shedding people, shedding expectations, or simply taking self-care seriously.
On a personal level, I’m pondering not just what I’ll write but WHY I write and what I should do or try to do with what I’ve written. The storytelling part of my brain churns away, but the practical aspect of my nature is asking, ‘what do you want to do with all these stories?’
The conversations inspire more stories and more questions… knowing that I’m not alone in this self-reflective purgatory doesn’t make it easier. But it does make it more interesting. This is, or could be, a tipping point for so many of us.
Things have changed! Now what?
In some ways, life really didn’t change much for the Offspring and I. We’ve always been a bit reclusive so hunkering down at home for two years felt like an extension of what we did anyway rather than a ‘jail sentence’. Being physically and medically vulnerable also helped make the decision a no-brainer.
That said, I have noticed that my response to the pandemic has been anger, something I don’t normally feel. Being exposed to the madness of conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and venal politicians on Twitter stoked the anger a little more each day. I found myself biting back, trying to inject facts into a debate that had drawn an abyss between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Without putting too fine a point to it, I came to hate the half of humanity that didn’t seem to care who died so long as they could live life as ‘normal’.
Leaving Twitter helped, and I don’t seethe with anger any more, but the angry little woman lurking inside has not gone far. Stupidity and injustice still have the power to make me furious. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing…so long as I can learn to use it in a positive way, to make things a tiny bit better.
I know this pandemic will end eventually, and I have high hopes that I’ll still be around to see it, but it won’t be life as normal. Not for me.
I work alone. I live alone (with two cats). I enjoy my own company … BUT I am a social creature and my need to connect——on the dance floor, in face-to-face conversation, and simply in passing in a busy city——was challenged in so many ways. This has been a serious roller coaster, emotionally, physically, psychologically and most of all socially. I have a few reclusive friends who initially expressed “this is not so bad” but over time they too got angry, so you’re not alone in that experience. For me, one of the fundamental things was the huge gap between being alone (independent) and being lonely. One is positive and the other is all about the loss of connections.
I didn’t realize why you were gone from Twitter completely, although when I looked for you there I noted your absence. I avoid all online combat. It’s too frustrating and there’s no way facts will win in an online debate hahahaha… not much of chance in person either. I tried that once. The best, most invested, most friendly, most personable of the regular crew of workman on my new home turned out to be an anti-vaxer/conspiracy theorist. I tried facts. I tried humor. I even tried guilt and emotional appeals “I don’t want you to die. I’ve already lost people to this virus.” But in the end, there was no convincing him so I told him that we were not going to talk about this again——ever——because if we did, I’d stop speaking to him entirely. We were already socially distancing. This just nailed it for me.
I do think there will be changes in my life that come out of this period of time. And I think my City——which is always evolving and innovating——will likely keep some of its pandemic inventions including more dining outside, staggered start times for theaters, more online reservations for museums, etc.. We’ll see how this all plays out.