9 things I’ve learned during Covid times
I had a dream last night. I know people recounting their dreams is the absolute worst but just let me tell you this one, and I promise I won’t do it again. I dreamt that I was asleep, dreaming that we were living through a pandemic, and in the dream I woke up and it had all been a bad dream. How’s that for meta? A dream within a dream that made me think the insane reality we’re living in was just a dream.
Like most people, my personal journey through the pandemic looks a bit like one of the Government’s Covid graphs: dips (kill me now), Everestic spikes (homeschooling is actually quite fun!) and patches of flat, unchanging hinterland (face pressed against window, drooling). I’ve drunk all the drinks, eaten all the food, done the zoom chats, quizzes, and kids parties, felt all the feelings, tried to read more, tried to do 5 minutes of yoga every day, tried to do squats at home, spent hours on WhatsApp saying inane phrases like: ‘what is happening?’ and ‘I’d cut my own arm off for a Zizzi’s’. But I’m not here to whinge about the pandemic. Instead, I wanted to share some of the profound (none of them are profound) and banal things that I’ve learned over the past 10 months. In true 2020/2021 style, there are 9, rather than 10. Here they are in no particular order:
1. You can never say ‘for fuck’s sake’ enough. Of all the myriad ways in which to swear, this is my firm favourite. If you’re furious and say it quickly, with vigour, it’s the verbal equivalent of hitting a punch bag. If you’re pissed off in a more laconic way - like when you’ve just sat down and realise you’ve left your drink in the kitchen - it can be lazily drawn out: foooor fuuuuck’s saaaake. If the rage is so great that you haven’t got the time or energy for all three words, you can of course truncate it to ‘fuck’s sake’. It’s the verbal equivalent of a leopard print scarf - tirelessly versatile, satisfyingly simple, and always in vogue.
2. ‘This too shall pass’. I mean, I know it’s stating the obvious but nothing can last forever, can it?! Sometimes I say this phrase to myself whilst I rock backwards and forwards, clutching a margarita like a comfort blanket. I highly recommend it. It’s soothing.
3. It’s a great time to be alive if you can’t be arsed to do stuff. Remember when you used to choose what you were going to wear? Remember putting on makeup? Remember planning and organising social activities? Remember frantically hoovering, wiping surfaces, and scrubbing poo off the toilet bowl because people were coming round? Remember thinking ‘Shit, it’s 11pm and I need to wash my hair before I have that meeting in the morning’? Me neither. That was all just a bad dream. This is our time: the disorganised, the pathologically lazy, the domestic sluts. No more tidying up or ablutions for us! Vive le paresseux!
4. Who cares? Nobody, as it turns out. We’re so used to living under the gaze of the world outside our doors, we don’t often see how suffocating it can be. What happens when we don’t have to get our bodies holiday-ready, when we don’t have to fit into a specific dress for a wedding, when we’re not training for a sports competition? At first I was anxious about the gym shutting - very anxious. What would happen now? How much strength would I lose - how much fat would I gain - with so much time to eat and no gym?
The thought horrified me, it kept me awake at night. So I ran most days, I did deadlifts, squats and pull ups in our makeshift gym (corner of the playroom), I tried not to eat too much chocolate, I didn’t have a cocktail every day at 6pm. I checked my size 12 jeans still fit. They did, for a while. But we all know how this ends. I couldn’t keep it up. There was too much to juggle: homeschooling, work, emotions, trying not to get out of shape. I wanted the chocolate, the booze, I couldn’t lift another weight in the playroom. So I stopped. I let myself be - and it felt incredible. I watched my muscles melt like butter on a baked potato and I got my size 14 jeans out. I learned that this is a time for permissiveness. If I feel like running, I’ll run, and if I feel like walking around the house in my husband’s old shorts eating double-buttered toast, then goddammit, that’s what I’m gonna do.
5. Sometimes it’s just fun to throw a rubber crocodile at each other for two hours. We did this the other day. All you need is a room, two or more people, a cushion each and a rubber crocodile (you could use another rubber toy if you wish). You take it in turn to try and hit each other with said crocodile, using the cushions as shields. If your opponent breaks your defence, they get a point, if not, you get a point. We’ve invented a number of games during Covid, which, however simple, garner a level of satisfaction and enjoyment that we rarely experience with ready made games. Boredom definitely leads to ingenuity (see rubber crocodile game for proof).
6. It’s good to talk. We all know this already, but never before has a good old rant been more satisfying - or more therapeutic. Communicating with people, no matter how banal or mindless you might think the content is, is definitely good for the soul.
‘What did you do today?’
‘Tried to wrench an ipad from my child's demon-like grip, before giving up and letting him watch Octonauts for four hours. What did you do?’
‘Put on a full face of make-up for the Tesco delivery man just in case he was hot. He wasn’t.’
These chats give us a little mental boost - and, if nothing else, they’ll give you a laugh. I sang a song to my friend the other day on a WhatsApp voice message. It was called ‘A Shit Fucking World’, (sang to the tune of A Whole New World from Aladdin). It was more uplifting than it sounds. She found it very moving.
7. Rage, rage against the cult of aggressive positivity. My friend recently ranted about how much he hates this phenomenon and I couldn’t agree more. We don’t have to be shiny happy people having fun ‘cos guess what? We’re not. The pressure (in digital and analogue life) to be constantly positive is both vacuous and dangerous; perpetuating the myth that if you're not beaming with joy or marvelling at the beauty of the world, you’re failing. We’re human and it’s ok to not be ok - now more than ever. It’s ok to rant and rave and say everything’s awful. It’s more than ok to find things hard - to be honest, I’d be more worried if you’re not finding any of this hard. There are no negative feelings, just feelings. So call Boris a prick, scream into a pillow, cry, rage, and don’t be so desperate to sidestep perceived ‘negative emotions’. They’re there for a reason. If other people can’t handle it, tell them to fuck off and listen to whale music.
8. Walking is more than just walking. During the November lockdown all we could do in terms of social interaction was go for walks. Of all the walks I went on, I enjoyed none more than the walks with my parents. We talked about Covid (of course), my mum made aggressively defiant statements like: ‘I am not eating potatoes anymore!’ As if in response to some invisible potato pusher. We weren’t going anywhere in particular, just walking, and so, with the rhythm of our steps came the stories. They talked about their parents, their grandparents, Iran. These were meandering conversations, recollections, sparks, softly lit - as effortless as breathing. We walked along the harbourside on a vividly bright morning, my mum made outlandish comments for ten minutes straight, I said ‘Mum!’, my dad and I exchanged a glance that said ‘what’s she like?’, we all laughed. I see in retrospect, that in those moments, all distractions removed, they were simply able to be my parents, and I, their daughter. It was just nice.
9. Celebrate the small wins. One thing the pandemic has changed is the benchmark for success - a welcome change as far as I’m concerned. But just because the usual pressures of daily life have been relaxed, it doesn’t mean you can’t still celebrate your achievements. Forget trying to beat your last time in a 10K, learning a new skill or having career ambitions. In this ‘Shit Fucking World’, success looks like this: changing out of your pyjamas (at any time of the day); eating six biscuits instead of seven; abstaining from booze one day out of 50; abstaining from booze until after 3pm; shaving legs, underarms or pubic regions (gold medal level); simply contemplating lifting a dumbbell (it’s the thought that counts); not checking your phone every 45 seconds; getting the kids to bed before 10pm.
If you’ve done any of the above, you’re winning. So give yourself a big pat on the back, squeeze your ever-expanding arse into some elasticated trousers, and crack open the Cremant.
