How Do We Break Free from Pandemic Inertia?

I’ve never felt so stuck in my life — what will it take to free myself when we’re still not free?

I was scrolling through my Instagram feed the other day and was a little dismayed to see the pattern of posts. There were a lot of “Look at my garden!” photos interspersed with “I’m lonely and I’m tired and I hate this pandemic” posts.

I often try to track my feelings and moods by looking back through journals, social media, and my writing. The problem is, that’s not as accurate as one might assume. My writing, for instance, is where I do a lot of deep dives into my shadows. It’s about exploring and purging and saying the things I’ve been afraid to say or revealing things I’ve been longing to reveal. You could say, in many ways, that it reflects the deepest, darkest parts of me.

As for my journals, I tend to use them as a tool to help me get through my difficult feelings. It’s basically my therapist and best friend to whom I can say anything. So yes, it’s peppered with sorrow and disappointment and anger. I mean, come on: The days of writing in “Dear Diary” about what a great day I had or that so-and-so might like me ended when I was in grade school.

And social media…? For some reason, it rarely occurs to me to share joys and successes there. Again, I’m not the type of person who will take a pause when I’m particularly “up” in order to record the moment. Whereas when I’m having heavier feelings, it’s only natural that I pause and reflect, opening up a moment that I might decide to share publicly. Further, I often hesitate to share good news or happiness on social media because I know how heavy the world is; I know how many people look at social media and feel badly about their own lives.

Because of all this, I try not to let glances back through my journals, Instagram feed, or writing reflect a complete picture of who I am or how I’ve been feeling — because it isn’t a complete picture. However, there is useful evidence there.

I certainly appreciated how frequently I posted about being tired to the bone. How lonely I often felt. How hard it was to navigate my anxiety about the pandemic as well as all the precautions that would make it possible for me to see certain people, but only at certain times.

As we hit the one-year anniversary of the lockdown, a time that feels like the pandemic is “mostly over” yet also with the understanding that we have months — and maybe even another full year (or years?) — ahead of transition and continued caution, I can’t help but look back and wonder how I’ve fared. I’ve often felt proud of myself for making it through in such deep isolation — even through the winter season, which is hard for me in good times.

However, this anniversary was marked for me with a shoulder injury that has caused a lot of pain and stress. All I can think is: Well, I almost made it through to the end.

Now all that “tired to the bone” I was feeling from pandemic stress and emotional exhaustion is exacerbated by the effort it takes to get through a normal day with a half-functioning dominant arm, by an hour of daily physical therapy, and by the anti-inflammatory medication that makes it hard to keep from nodding off when I’m sitting at my computer.

These days, I look out my window at the garden, at all the things I needed to build there, all the grass that still needs to be pulled up, all the bushes I wanted to plant, and all I can say at this point is: I surrender.

Do you ever think about how the last year affected us in terms of our habits, our mentality, our thought processes, our decision making skills? We all know the emotional toll it took (and is still taking), but what about the ruts it created in our brains?

One of the pieces of information that I’ve been happy to have excavated in my explorations of my Instagram feed is the tiredness I mentioned, as well as the loneliness, and the boredom.

I want to give myself credit for doing the best I could to keep my life full and interesting this past year — I’ve kept up with my social life, at least virtually, indulged in old hobbies, and finally got some projects done that had been sitting around for a long time.

But also, there was only so much any of us could do. I mean, in all honesty, a whole lot of my life this past year has been me in yoga pants, blanket around my shoulders, hunched over my computer drinking overly-sweetened Earl Grey tea. Alone in my house.

I’ve only had one haircut in the past year. The only time I go out is to visit with family (after quarantining), go on socially distanced walks with a friend, or go to the grocery store. My daily walks take me down the same road every single day. I don’t even remember the last time I got particularly zhuzhed up for a special occasion. I don’t even remember the last time I had a special occasion.

Of course I’m tired. Of course I’m bored. God, who isn’t?

But what do we do? It’s still not time to throw caution to the wind. So what do we do to break this mental rut? To find our energy? To renew our excitement in life?

I’ve been having this sexual fantasy for the past six months or so in which I meet someone online — a total stranger — and we arrange a rendezvous at a hotel for one night of meaningless sex.

This isn’t particularly noteworthy except for the fact that it’s not really in alignment with my personality or sexual needs. I prefer to have an emotional connection in a sexual encounter. And I really, really need to trust someone in order to let go.

But this fantasy feels healing in some way — like it can help me bust through my past, my old identity, my inhibitions, and…the extreme atrophy and boredom of this pandemic.

Oh right, the pandemic. Once that thought comes in, the whole fantasy is lost. I haven’t been vaccinated yet and it seems like meeting someone who just got off an airplane in a hotel room to engage in intimate exchanges of bodily fluids is probably not the best idea in a pandemic.

This seems to be symbolic of a lot of my thoughts and fantasies these days. I often think of radical ways I can bust through my pandemic inertia. Vacation! (That I can’t afford right now.) A party! A cheap road trip to my hometown to visit my family and friends! Random sex with someone who lives locally so we can avoid the airplane exposure and hotel! (Apparently, after a year of touch starvation I’m really invested in this random sex idea…)

Each time I think of something, I’m reminded that we still can’t do stuff like that. Or I guess it’s more accurate to say that I don’t want to take those risks.

But I’m also starting to become a bit concerned with the level of inertia that has built up around my pandemic habits. Just going to the grocery store has become…difficult. Is this what life is going to be like as we open back up? Am I going to struggle to do the most basic things? Like not wear yoga pants every day?

I long to nip this in bud. I see what’s coming and I want to pivot now before I become so complacent that I decide to never come out of quarantine again.

I keep asking my friends the same question these days: What are you doing to make life exciting right now?

I’ve asked this of some friends so often that I’m pretty sure they think I’m losing it. (Which might be true.) “Ummm, taking care of my ailing mother, remember? Not much room for excitement there,” one always tells me. Others are trying online dating with little success (join the club), some are planning summer vacations, some are going back to school, and some have abandoned all caution and are back to living their lives the way things were before the pandemic.

I’m wondering what road to take. Making little changes in my life in the hopes that they will cumulatively lead to a road out of this pandemic inertia?

Or is it time to meet someone in a hotel room — at least symbolically speaking? Do I need to make huge, terrifying, identity-shattering changes in order to see myself out of this frozen world?

Something tells me — god help me — that the answer might be the latter. That the change will have to be big and that it will have to hurt. That it will have to make me into a different person, entirely, and that this self that I know is already gone.

I long to expedite this change but also…I’m just so damn tired.

© Yael Wolfe 2021

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