While scrolling through Instagram the other day, I saw a picture of one of my favourite influencers, beaming in a charcoal face mask. The caption was ‘tbt to last year when face masks were a part of your skin care routine and not a piece of cloth on your face.’ I smiled to myself, but it made me think about how much and how quickly life has changed.
At the beginning of 2020, as the virus was already sweeping through China, most of us had never heard of Covid. No one knew how to spell quarantine, nor did we know what zoom was. The last few days before school closed, Covid was looked at like some sort of joke or an internet meme like the dress (blue and black!) The weekend before my school closed, I went to my nearest city and remember joking with my friends that I had Covid because the city had 10 cases. I remember thinking my history teacher was insane when he said in March we wouldn’t go back to school till May, obviously we would go back next week!
And now, life has changed beyond recognition. People have lost loved ones and have been unable to grieve with friends and family. Others have caught the disease and are still suffering the effects months later, even people who are young and healthy. Those with pre-existing conditions are having to make the tough call between returning to work/school and staying home.
To avoid adding to a mounting death toll, we have all been forced to say goodbye to our normal way of living, and have lost out on key rituals. Attending my final year of high school in the US, I lost out on saying goodbye to my friends and teachers, signing yearbooks, a prom and a traditional graduation ceremony. Even my freshers week, supposed to be a week of partying and meeting new people, has now gone virtual, as I conduct my first term of college online due to travel restrictions. And there seems to be no end in sight, just as we were getting back to a sort of normal, cases began to spike and more restrictions were added.
As we’ve been all thrust into such an awful situation, it’s important to find ways to preserve your mental health. I’ve really enjoyed looking back at photos pre-covid (although I’ve caught myself wondering where the social distancing is in big crowds), reminding myself that there will be a time when I can get together with friends and live life the way I used to. Perhaps you could make a scrapbook or a collage. I’ve also enjoyed rediscovering board games; at the beginning of lockdown my family and I would regularly play things like Cluedo and Monopoly. To be honest, after six months of constant zoom calls, I’ve become rather sick of them, but I’ve discovered a surprising amount of joy from online games like Skribbl (online pictionary) and iMessage games like Crazy8 and Archery. Something my friend and I also did as well which we loved was to make a list of things we’re going to do when all this craziness is over. We want to swim with dolphins, head to the beach and have a spa day. It’s been nice to have something to look forward to.
I hope that my little bit of advice has been helpful, and if it hasn’t, I hope you’ve found comfort in knowing that you aren’t alone in your frustration at the current situation. There’s a quote that says ‘life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain,’ and I hope you all find ways to dance in the middle of this epic rainstorm.