Ulrika Jonsson
As the UK slowly prepares to open up again, best columnist Ulrika Jonsson is excited – but also nervous that she’s forgotten how to ‘do’ normal life…
We’re on the threshold of returning to some kind of normality right now.
We’ve been on so many thresholds over this past year that the sense of anticipation, fear, wonder and worry has become some sort of absurd constant.
I remember vividly – as
I’m sure we all do – those few days in the run-up to the first lockdown… and how utterly terrified I was. Not of the virus, but of the world I knew and the people in it.
People were behaving differently, weirdly, bizarrely and it scared me.
Then we all found ourselves having to get used to a new world which wasn’t particularly brave, but was one of fear, anxiety and uncertainty. And, while I felt all those things very keenly, I also held onto the feeling that what the pandemic had facilitated was an allowance for me to hide away from the rest of the world.
I’m quite good at that. I like it. I’ve done it a lot in my life. Lying low; staying away; keeping to myself. In many respects, lockdown itself didn’t present many day-to-day changes, as I work mostly from home anyway – but suddenly, I was in the company of other members of the family, constantly. And that wasn’t always amazing. But as we now stand, tippy-toed, on the doorstep of some kind of world that will, in some ways, resemble the world we once knew – restaurants and bars open; seeing and even touching friends and family, I feel really uneasy. I do not fear the virus. I understand that sounds like arrogance but I know that
for the vast majority of us it’s not been a horrendous experience. But it’s real life – all over again – that I fear. It’s normality. It’s not being able to use the excuse that we’re in the middle of a pandemic and ‘can you please understand that I’m just a bit weird?’
It’s knowing you can’t escape all the drudgery of the normal rhythms of life again. It’s fearing some kind of exposure to life and all its normal obligations that makes you hesitate. Don’t get me wrong
– I’m raring to go.
I’ve been chomping at the bit, waiting for this moment to come.
I’ve been sitting, lying, standing at home; jumping up and down at home; banging on the door at home to let me out and meet people and be what I once was. But now that moment has arrived, I’m nervous about it.
Just like I get nervous when someone shouts at me in the supermarket for standing too close, I am now a bit on edge about the prospect of someone not shouting at me. Like all human beings, I’ve had to adapt.
I’ve adapted to a different world and it has taken time.
It has also taken a lot of patience, will, confidence and what the Swedes call ‘ice in your stomach’.
It’s when you keep your cool. Ride it out. Stay true and hold on to what you know.
It’s just, I don’t know what I know anymore…