Three Phases I went through in the Pandemic
“You were given this life because you were strong enough to live it.”
I last met any of my friends in February 2020.
We were in college at the time, packing our bags to go home for the mid-semester break. We never returned.
A year — which seems like an eternity — has gone by, and we’re still in our homes, connected only through bi-weekly video calls. It was our last semester in college, and to state the obvious, we did not even get a proper send-off from the place where we spent four years. Three and a half, if we still care about facts.
Time seems to have flown by when I think about the past 12 months. It feels as if this will all be over soon. We will meet again in college and live our final three months to the fullest. Parties will follow with more food and alcohol than we can imagine, just like they show it in the movies. Not to mention the organic drugs we all love will help reveal some secrets. It seems surreal now, but it would all have been a reality, our reality.
Tommy Shelby once said,
No one came back.
He said it to describe people who returned alive from the war. It had killed their emotions, and what returned was just flesh and bones. Breathing but dead on the inside. I think watching so many people die does that to you.
It is an exaggeration to compare our situations to those who return from the war, but we are experiencing something similar.
I realize I am not the same person I was a year ago. Things have changed, and so have I. All I know is that a man went into the pandemic at the onset of Summer in 2020, and he won’t be the same when he comes out of it.
Assuming he comes out of it. It will be the same man, with the same haircut, possibly different specs, and with the same birthmark under his left ear. Yet, he will be different, and he cannot promise if it will on the left or the right side of 0.
I have been through periods of boredom, loneliness, spirituality, and awakening in the past 12 months. Boredom and loneliness were the initial phases borne out of the sudden halt to our lives. It lasted until June of last year, coupled with my breakup in January.
I was at home during that initial lockdown period, sulking into my pillow and thinking I’ve lost it all in life. I re-imagined all those fights and moments when my mind said I should have tried more. I could have handled things so differently. Maybe I am too difficult to be with.
Embarrassing? I know. There were worse periods, but it is for another day.
Then came the phase of spirituality. I was finally recovering from my heartbreak when these questions started popping in my head: What do I want to do in life? What is the meaning of life? All these people who have made it in life say you should do something you’re passionate about. What am I passionate about? Am I even good at anything? I get very passionate about football, so is that it?
I read books. Not hundreds, but tens. Fourteen to be precise in a matter of 3 months from July to September. Lines from Viktor Frankl, Murakami, and others resonated with what I was feeling. The desire to serve a purpose bigger than yourself, religiously devoting yourself to your dreams and applying stoicism as a way of life. I read a bit about Marcus Aurelius and watched videos from The School of Life. I was trying to find answers to perpetual human dilemmas.
September ended, and with it ended my spirituality. I knew these were still important questions that I still had no answer to, but I was content with it now.
Awakening was next in line. I was trying so hard to figure out what life is that I forgot to live it. So in October, when I started my day job, I acted and took control of my life. It is not useful if I only think of figuring out the answers that elude most of humanity. I deleted my Twitter account to cure me of my addiction, reduced my screen time, and started reading all kinds of stuff. The good, the bad, the blogs, and the novels.
It has been four months in this phase, and it still feels like the right thing to do. I’ve maintained a couple of habits but have relapsed in quite a few. My screen time is still higher than I’d like it to be, but I have been exercising regularly, reading a lot. I even started trading seriously.
It still leaves a lot to improve, but we’ll see how it goes. Maybe this is all an illusion, and I’ll come back a few months later with a post titled Six phases I went through during the pandemic. And maybe it is not.
You and I, we both will figure it out.
