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I think we all get to be a bit more honest with ourselves right now. It’s not like anybody is around to hear it! And it’s not like the stakes are very high because, right now, no matter what we admit, very little changes about our day-to-day reality for the time being. And so I think some of us, with this distance from our old lives, are coming to some realizations about the way we used to do things. We were very busy before, and being busy has a way of keeping the truth hidden. You get into a routine, and life can feel like a train that’s just moving quickly on a set of tracks you never asked to be on. But then it’s hard to get off. And now, we really are off those tracks. We are figuratively off-track as a society, which gives us the space to examine the tracks we were on.
Maybe now, when you don’t just have to go through the motions of things, when you have plenty of free time, and when you’re not around anyone for whom you need to put on airs because you’re not around anyone, you’re coming to some realizations about your old life. Perhaps you can bring those realizations with you when life returns to normal, so your new normal can look different–better even.
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That relationship sucks
If you were just in a new relationship when this began, or you’d seen someone a few times, or you were in some sticky
on-again-off-again thing, then you likely didn’t quarantine with that person. It’s not like you lived together or were serious enough. So now, you’ve had forced space from the person. Now you’ve had a chance to see what you think and feel about the person without the pressure of having him in front of you, needing you to behave some sort of way.
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It’s nothing to return to
Maybe now you realize that relationship you were in was all about sex because, without the sex available to you, you’re not interested in the person. You certainly don’t enjoy talking to him. Maybe you realize how remarkably peaceful your days are when you don’t see that person. Whoops. That may have just been a toxic, bad thing. Maybe you realize that you actually do manage to survive when that on-again-off-again relationship was forced to be off for a long time. So…why go back on?
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You have some addictions
It’s possible that you are addicted to certain things. Sex. Shopping. Gambling. Alcohol. Cigarettes. Junk food. You didn’t quite realize it before because you had those things available to you. You could shop or smoke or have sex or drink or gamble whenever you wanted. So the addictive feeling–the withdrawal–never set in.
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Now you’re suffering withdrawal
Only now, when you can’t easily (or perhaps at all) access certain things or people or activities, you realize you were addicted. You are addicted. The way you’re reacting to not accessing those things is frightening you. And it’s making you reconsider what to do when you finally do have unbridled access again. It’s scares you how much you want that stuff, and you’re wondering if you should…wean yourself off.
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You’re done with that friend
Whoops. You have forgotten to call this one friend all of quarantine. You haven’t missed her at all. When life was normal, you spent a lot of time with her. You’re not sure why. Maybe she clung to you. Maybe she forced her way into your life. Maybe she treated you like a therapist. Maybe she represented something for you–like some social status.
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You don’t miss what she brought
Right now, you genuinely don’t miss that friend. If it was a friend who treated you like a therapist, you don’t miss her monopolizing conversations and demanding you run to her at a moment’s notice during a breakdown. If it was some friend you used for social climbing, you’re realizing what a relief it is for the entire act of social climbing to be cancelled right now, and you’re realizing that without that, you’re not sure what you liked about her.
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You don’t like your job
It’s easy to not notice that you don’t like your job so long as you fill your life with distraction. Maybe
the workplace culture is fun. Maybe you had a coworker you liked to flirt with. Or they catered free lunch that was good. And then, you had your hobbies and social life after work that made your day feel fulfilling.
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Now it’s just you and your work
Every element of your work other than the brass taxes, down to business, pared down work is available to you. And you may be realizing that you don’t really like what you do. It doesn’t excite you. You don’t feel it’s important. You may not feel it taps into your skills. And now that you don’t have the other things to brighten your day like happy hours and gym time, you’re really noticing that the one thing you have–your work–doesn’t make you happy.
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Perhaps you want to move
Being in isolation has a funny way of teaching us more about where we live. The people sort of make a place and they sort of don’t. But when the world is in crisis, you get to see a city for what it really is. You no longer get to just pick and choose what elements of your city you pay attention to. Its purest traits–ugly and beautiful–appear during a crisis.
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Maybe it’s ugly
Maybe you’re realizing there is no neighborhood feel where you live. People don’t know their neighbors. People don’t offer to help their neighbors. When you can’t rely on seeing the friends you’ve hand-selected, and it’s just you and your immediate neighbors, you may realize there isn’t much sense of community where you live. You may even realize you feel unsafe there when the economy becomes unstable.
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You struggled with codependency
We can be addicted to humans. It’s hard to notice because they are such an inherent part of our lives. We see them at work, at the gym, in the surrounding cars in traffic, at the pharmacy. We see them all of the time. If you struggled with codependency issues, you may not have known it because you were never short on company.
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You need to develop independence
It may have frightened you just how, well, frightened you were not to have access to other people. It may have hit you harder than you thought it would, and faster than you thought it would. You may have become instantly panicked at the prospect of not being able to make plans with other people all day long. You may have realized you struggle to spend time by yourself.
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You did too much for the approval of others
We aren’t doing much for the approval of others now are we? We are wearing sweatpants. We aren’t wearing makeup. We aren’t going places to see and be seen. We aren’t concerned with being with any sort of in-crowd. We are experiencing the luxury of not even dealing with insecurity because there is nobody around to be insecure in front of.
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You don’t want to go back to that
When you are forced to just relax on the pretenses–when you really have absolutely nobody around to judge you–you can experience how good it feels to just do what you feel like doing, and what’s best for you. You may learn that it feels much better than anybody’s approval of you.
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You weren’t living your best life
You may just realize you weren’t living your best life. You’ve now put your old life under the microscope and you’re realizing a lot of weak points–a lot of flaws and threads coming loose. You may realize how many elements of your life you don’t like, that you actually have the power to change, and just never changed.
