The research speaks loud and clear.
The world emerged from the height of the Pandemic a different place.
TL:DR (too long: didn't read, recording below):
And generally, we claim to know the cause: Social isolation. We didn't get to see or interact with each other for two years (give or take some time). And it royally f-ed us up. But what was it about this lack of social interaction that caused such an impact? Did we miss travel? Holidays with family? sharing a pint between friends? Or perhaps we reveled in our mandated alone time. Did we find that we're more extroverted or introverted than we previously thought? Did we spend more time in our heads than we used to? Or did we simply replace our social time with screens? 2020 I'd recently gotten a bidet, unintentionally stopped ordering anything online, and had taken a job as a nanny that would suit social isolation quite well. I didn't own a tv and often forgot that my computer was a suitable alternative. I hung a hammock from my trusses and slept soundly in it for the better part of two years. I saw fewer people, but spent no less time socializing than I had before. I met new friends, only now we met at the dog park, at a distance, and from behind masks. Seeing each other's faces for the first time was always a shock that I quite enjoyed. No one that I knew died from COVID. I listened to more podcasts than I ever had before, painted a mural in my bedroom that i fell in love with, and felt completely helpless and useless as men and women were disrespected and killed by police and white men. The world burned, and I just watched. What else could I do? We were told to wear masks and keep our distance. And I went to work, where children and parents worried about insignificant things like their jobs and the color of dinner. I worried about insignificant things, too. Like their perception of me as a caregiver. And then I remembered a thought that used to haunt me. I'll never get to meet myself. And I felt insignificant. As insignificant as the glass that broke, the empty shampoo bottle, or the projections we make of ourselves.. And it freed me. I have other glasses, will survive without washing my hair, and don't have the right to impose my opinion on others, regardless of its effect. When I was a kid, I was not yet myself. Nor was I when I moved out of my parents house, or moved in with my future ex-husband. I wouldn't be myself when he moved out six years later, or two years ago when COVID swept the globe, changing the course of history for everyone. But the world is always changing. And so are we. To say that COVID changed the world is like saying that farmers grow plants, schoolwork teaches children, prayers heal the sick, or kids chase dogs. Undeniably exacerbated by factors like disease, or enhanced by attention, intellect, and care, some things are inevitable. The world changes, plants grow, kids learn, health declines and improves, and dogs run. My experience during COVID reminded me of my childhood. I don't mean the stories or the holidays, the fights or the falls, but the feeling that distinguishes childhood from every other phase of life. The way a food tastes and emotions feel, literally and physically. Children, a friend once said to me, don't own anything. A simple concept, but truly profound when pondered. 2021 Since 2020, I've learned how to think freely and fairly, unencumbered by typical social pressures. I became more empathetic and sympathetic; not only understanding and feeling the pain behind people's frustrations, but understanding the process of that pain's manifestation. I learned to prioritize our similarities over our differences. Across age, race, even species at times. Everything became a metaphor for something else. My dog's anxiety wasn't so different from the kids' I worked with, or my own when I took a hard enough look. Micromanaging, and other forms of control, I noticed were merely manifestations of stress. And they were everywhere. I became very sensitive to controlling behavior, whether it was upon me, unrelated to me, or my own urge to take control. I stopped lying and began to trust again, unconditionally. Recalling a childhood reliance on the truth tellers, I wanted to be an example of trust. Children expect adults to use the best knowledge the world has known to guide them. Only, I am an adult, and adults don't have all the answers. Parents are only people, and though they might act with the best of intentions, slight inconsistencies in their tone or the content of their stories, confuse children's developing sense of judgment. This is especially true when an adult, a truth-teller, improperly labels a child's feelings. The child, torn between believing themself or the trusted all-knowing adult, is left feeling resentful, conflicted, and untrusting of both parties. Self-doubt begins to manifest. This lesson is still a difficult one for me to explain, as I'm not telling adults to spill the beans on Rumpelstiltskin, Santa Clause, Zeus, or Moses. But I witnessed minor verbal interactions cause tremendous doubt in children's perceptions of themselves. Children's attempts to process their own emotions were halted by their parents' honest attempts to ease their worries. A parent's endeavor to control the situation, assuring their children that they have everything under control. Because seeing their children in distress will trigger any parent's stress reaction. So, where I once might have imposed my opinion, I learned to step back. I learned not to respond verbally to negative emotions. I realized that directing children to calm down, or placing them in a pensive time-out, was a way to control the bothersome situation rather than the stress it was causing me. But I didn't restrict my attention, I simply controlled my verbal interaction. I practiced sign language (which ultimately turned into our own form of charades). And we began to trust our feelings, sort through them ourselves, and seek help when it was needed. 2022 I am writing this from my parents house. Being here feels no more strange than being anywhere else, which is a strange feeling in itself. To be.
I notice the ways I'm like my parents and am different from them. I speculate their influence on my brother and my development and on their own continued evolution. But we can never be truly sure how we became the people we are. Nor can we be truly sure of the people we are, were, or ever will be I will never meet myself, after-all. I was hardly myself last week, but almost myself yesterday. I suspect that I will not be myself - that is, my current, now, self - again tomorrow, next year, and especially as time cruelly shows itself on my skin and in my bones. If I'm so destined to live that long. We are always changing. And so is the world. But COVID changed the world with a permanent marker instead of the intended magic from Crayola. The COVID I experienced marked me with a needle and ink, when the tattoo only required a sponge. Whether the dolphins actually came back to swim in the Venice canals, or we finally opened our ears to the calls for racial justice and social equity, I can't help but lament our ignorance and neglect for the lessons those years attempted to teach us. These lessons, it seems, devastatingly failed to stick. If COVID were a metaphor, it wouldn't be indelible ink, but the one popularized by the oxygen mask. "Put your own mask on before helping anyone else," the metaphor sounded. And it sounded good. Until it didn't. We had our masks in place, but we failed to follow the next step. We left others neglected, telling ourselves that keeping our distance was help enough. And for some, it may have been. Our masks continued to slip, and we continued to readjust them, taking care of, and prioritizing, ourselves. Looking at 2023 My mask is on and I'm here to help.
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