A welcomed life in the pandemic slow lane
Ihave this recurring nightmare where I am in back in school and I have to take a final exam. I’m panicked because I forgot to study for the test. Not only that, but I never went to any of the classes and I didn’t do any of the homework because I didn’t know I’d signed up for the course in the first place. Also, I’m not wearing pants. And I am only able to walk in slow motion in the opposite direction of where I need to go.
Lately it seems like this could describe my waking life, too. Like the dream, I feel unprepared and unable to make progress. Unlike my dream, in my actual life I remember to put on pants. Most of the time.
The feeling of dream deja vu started a few weeks ago when my email inbox and social media feeds were filled with questions and suggestions for how I was going to make my grand re-entrance into the post-pandemic world. With the weather getting warmer and more people getting vaccinated, this kind of speculation was understandable. Putting aside the fact that I won’t be looking to do a grand anything for a while because it will be a long time before we are truly post-pandemic, the subtext of the ads and articles bothered me. They all suggested that when we do emerge from our cocoons we should be ready to display a new and improved version of ourselves.
And here I was just trying to do my best to get by during these past 13 months. One of the few bright spots of this enforced period of isolation was the opportunity to slow down and let go of the feeling that we have to be doing something all the time. To learn to be happy with just being. It has been a gift to realize that our lives are just fine without all those things that seemed so important in our pre-pan
It has been a gift to realize that our lives are just fine without all those things that seemed so important in our pre-pandemic life, like meetings, errands and wearing pants.
demic life, like meetings, errands and wearing pants. So why am I feeling like that was a lie and I was supposed to be working around the clock to improve myself ?
Maybe it’s because I’m getting messages telling me I need a new wardrobe because I’m going to find my “real clothes” from my pre-pandemic life no longer fit. When I do decide to visit that part of my closet that has the non-elasticized waistbands, I’m sure I will discover that things don’t, in fact, fit. But it’s not because, as the messages suggest, my amazing quarantine diet and exercise plan has rendered my clothes too big.
Or maybe it’s because I get emails asking me where my next exciting trip will be so I can use one of the languages I’ve learned during my time at home. As someone who struggled to learn ubbi dubbi, the secret language all the cool kids who watched PBS knew, I’m barely able to say ixnay on the oreignfay anguagelay. That’s okay, though. Last time I checked they speak English at my next exotic destination: Market 32.
Or it could be because I’ve read that throughout history, the likes of William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton used times of plague and pandemic to accomplish great things. OK, so I didn’t come up with something “important” like the laws of gravity, but I did recently discover the source of an unpleasant smell in our pantry. What constitutes greatness is relative.
I may not have made time to learn to play an instrument or alphabetize my sock drawer, but I have spent a lot of time worrying that everyone but me has transformed themselves in amazing ways during the past year.
Which leads me to wonder: If I’m the only one who comes out of all this looking exactly the same as I did in early 2020, how will anyone recognize me?
Like that recurring nightmare, it looks like I have a lot of incomplete assignments to cram in before the end. Even though I never signed up for this course, I’d like to think I’ve learned something just by making it to this point. Looking back at the syllabus from the past year, I have a pretty good idea what the first question of the final exam will be: You have sourdough starter, three jigsaw puzzles and a four-pack of toilet paper. If you decide to let your hair go gray, how much hand sanitizer will it take to run a Zoom meeting? Extra credit if you’re wearing pants.