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I don’t think I ever fully recovered from the earthquake that was the pandemic, and aspects of the life I had to adapt to have lingered on. If I were to give it a name, I would call it the "post post pandemic" phase of my life. Thankfully, I never got sick, but the life that I was forced to incorporate carried over and aspects still remain. All those months of acclimating to the pandemic world shifted my behavior, and I thought when it was over, I would just go back to my old normal life.
That didn’t happen.
I still don’t wear make-up or perfume, but that’s ok for now. I made the decision to not dye my hair anymore because I actually like it now since I am allowing my natural hair to live its best life. Those are surface changes that took hold during the pandemic and remain to this day by choice. It’s the underlying changes and behaviors that I didn’t fully recover from that continue to haunt me that I have to address.
Recently, a friend called me to go out. I decided to take the plunge, and we went to the Arts District in downtown Los Angeles. People were out and about, and as I looked around, I felt like I was in a foreign land. I struggled with engaging with people, which is far from the person I am, or that I used to be. I was socially challenged and somewhat jealous of the crowd around me. I used to kill it on the scene and butterfly around, versus now when I am a wallflower.
I think it’s important to be honest about that because we all had to make adjustments during shelter-in-place, but we don’t really talk about the aftermath and how aspects of that experience that shaped who we are may have continued on to today. Now that I find myself in the post-post pandemic phase of my life, it’s still a struggle. At least I took a step to re-enter society and can continue to work on my social skills moving forward.
I did have one glimpse of hope, however, when I stopped by an art show. There was an elderly man sitting in a wheelchair all alone, staring at a painting. I walked up to him and struck up a conversation about his thoughts on the piece. The feeling of connecting with a stranger reminded me of my old self and how fruitful it is for my brain. I left the conversation with insight; I realized that I need social engagement for my soul and that I am capable of it if I continue to put myself out there.
When you spend so much time alone, it shapes your behavior and the core of who you are as a human being. I have not managed to fully rid myself of the conditions surrounding my environment that were involuntarily imposed on me. It feels different than clinical depression. In my experience, often times it can be useful to take Wellbutrin or some other antidepressant to get through a depressive episode, but it’s not so easy to reconstruct the life to which you have become accustomed due to the pandemic.
I figured if I do some minor things, I might work toward returning to my old self. I started to write Post-its and put them on my dresser so when I wake up, I have a list of things I have to do. It can be as simple as: make coffee, work out, grocery shop, work on your book, and pray for your soul. At the end of the day, I look at the list and cross off the ones that I accomplished and the ones that are left carry on the next day. The Post-it remains stuck on my dresser. It helps to make me accountable and, to be honest, it can be annoying to wake up and see the list from yesterday and not have everything checked off. It puts pressure on me to return to the ones from the previous day and complete those hovering tasks.
Aside from the Post-its ritual, when I practice yoga. Afterward, there is a cool-down meditation in which I imagine a light in my core clearing out all the dark matter that seemed to have taken over my being during those months of being isolated. I know it’s doing something positive for my mental health because I feel a difference in my mental state if I slack off for a few days, or sometimes weeks. When I couple concrete activities with some form of spirituality, it helps.
Although the pandemic has been over for quite some time, the fallout of the pandemic is still at large. Not everyone is bouncing back to a life pre-pandemic. Some of us are now stuck in the post-post pandemic phase of life, and it’s important to have open conversations about that experience. Just because the pandemic is over doesn’t mean you’re not going to suffer from pandemic aftershocks. It sunk its teeth into my routine, and as hard as I try to return to myself before the earthquake, it’s not going to happen right away, and that’s fine. The Post-its, along with my meditation exercises, are working for me, and acknowledging that I have not recovered from the life that I was forced to take on during the pandemic helps me stay true to myself. At the very least, I’m aware and taking steps to evolve to a healthier place with echoes of my old self slowly returning back.
