It’s funny how quickly you can begin to hate a single room. I’m writing this having had my second self-isolation notice of term, feeling utterly out of control as neither were at all avoidable. Both instances have prompted me to survey my tiny, green-carpeted room in university halls and consider how much money I’ve spent on making it less ugly, even turning it into something I enjoy looking at. I’ve curated a space that I like being in, that feels homely and looks pretty. But none of this stops the feeling of my four FreePrints-clad walls closing in on me each time I discover that it’s now my sole view for however many days Test and Trace deem to be necessary. It’s interesting how quickly a place can become at once a sanctuary and anathema.
During the first lockdown, I became an online shopping addict, (we’ll pretend I wasn’t one already), and got all too well acquainted with my local Hermes courier. This second lockdown, I’ve managed to somewhat curb the habit of online clothes shopping, but I’ve noticed a shift in the pattern – I now spend more on room décor. Something about lockdown, coupled with two self-isolation periods, drives a woman to scour Etsy for Christmas decorations, regardless of how early in the year it is.
Perhaps, the most important lesson I’ve learned, aside from breaking up with my addiction to clicking ‘add to cart’, is the power of introspection. I’m sure we all witnessed, and to some extent participated in, the self-improvement grind during the first lockdown. For me, it was an important and necessary lesson in learning to be alone. As someone who’s been in a string of long-term relationships for most of my teenage years, and as someone who spent little to no time at home before lockdown as I was literally always busy, the thought of spending an unspecified period of time doing nothing and seeing no one besides those in my household was daunting.
I’ve always been the kind of person who never did anything alone. I remember being in Sixth Form and always asking around for company on a shopping trip. Any errands I ran would always be in the company of a willing friend. In short, I was terrified to be alone and I couldn’t even begin to explain why I felt this way. I was also very deeply convinced that I didn’t need time to ‘discover’ myself. I vividly remember crying in my friend’s car after a recent breakup, insistent upon the fact that I didn’t need time to be alone or learn self-reflection – I already knew everything there was to know about myself! Shockingly, I was wrong. I was in desperate need of some productive introspection. In fact, there was nothing I needed more than to be alone with my own thoughts.
As the days in lockdown stretched on without a tangible culmination, I found myself desperately missing my friends after only a handful of days. One of my closest friends lives no more than a three-minute walk from my house; we’d gone to the same primary and secondary schools so lockdown was the longest we’d spent apart from one another. But, like any strange, new experience, I adjusted. I learnt to be alone and to be truly comfortable in my own company. If someone as extraverted as me can learn to do this, it’s within reach for everyone.
It wasn’t easy but I fell in love with my own company. I’ve learnt to value time on my own. I think lockdown prompted a kind of introspection that nobody pre-empted or desired but that was perhaps more necessary than we realised. The daunting notion of being alone, or just having an unprecedented expanse of free time in self-isolation or in lockdown, provides a forced, rather than desired, period for soul-searching. No one wants to sit and evaluate their own emotions, thought processes and the minutiae of their inner-workings. Being caught up in the never-ending onslaught of modern life makes it so easy to ignore our own thoughts – we can become so detached from ourselves that we don’t even really know who we are anymore.
I learnt a lot about who I am, how I think and my future plans and desires, none of which I had ever really sat down to think about before. It’s so difficult to extrapolate who we are and who we present ourselves as socially, as a result of social conformity. Maybe we don’t really want that high-flying, extremely draining career where working 80 hours a week is the only way to succeed, but external pressure leads us to believe that’s our only option. However, without genuine evaluation of who we are and our true desires, we jeopardise not only our romantic relationships, but also our friendships and, most importantly, our own happiness. The process of healthy self-reflection can make us more content, more creative and more productive. However, it’s important to draw a clear distinction between introspection and overthinking or rumination; introspection is never characterised by the self-flagellation of the critical voice.
Someone told me years ago that the most productive way to feel is to sit with and respect the emotions you experience, to exist within the moment. The same can be said for our thought processes, our deepest desires and for establishing what we really value in life, love, and friendship. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the trend of ‘romanticising’ your life or being ‘the main character’ coincided with lockdown; people began to realise the value in freeing yourself from the constraints of being afraid to be alone. Maybe ‘romanticising’ the making of your morning coffee to Lana Del Rey’s latest single won’t uncover all there is to know about yourself, but taking time to be present, alone, and comfortable in your thoughts and actions seems a good place to begin.
*This article was written on the 29th of November*