How are we going to deal with germs?

AFAMILY emergency this week saw me gird my loins and leave the sterile vacuum of my home to get on a relatively busy train. No biggie, I hear you say, but in an hour I saw a side of myself that I really didn’t recognise, or like.

I’ve always been the family adventurer. My parents endured pretty much a year of sleepless nights when I decided, aged 28 to leave a stable job for life to travel alone around Asia, Australia and South America, taking rides on the back of pick-up trucks, fishing boats and rickety local buses. I shook hands, I embraced, I even carried one girl’s chickens as she wrestled with her three kids on a bus just outside Sao Paulo.

Could this woman cowering in her window seat, pressing her mask to her face, trying mentally to measure the distance from the cute but loudly singing children to her, and guessing the amount of ventilation in the carriage, really be the same woman?

Did I really tell a young man who looked like he wanted to sit in front of me that it wasn’t two metres away so fiercely that he rolled his eyes at me before stomping off?

Did I spend most of the journey burning with resentment at why so many people were travelling, without thinking they probably all had good reason to like me?

Yes I did. In my current unvaccinated state an unexpected anxiety and intolerance of others seemed to envelope me for the whole journey. Life suddenly became more complicated, and it got me thinking about how much the pandemic has changed us and whether we will be able to go back to being who we were.

For those of us who have been able to, we have built our Covid cocoons around us and we’ve become acclimatised to them.

There is a sense of comfort from stepping from bedroom to living room to laptop in our baffies, occasional trips to the supermarket and walks around the local area. Older children have returned home, younger ones have needed our unhurried attention, with schools and after school activities offering little or no respite.

In my case, one student son has permanently reclaimed the fold-down bed in my down-sized house, telling me he’s happier back at home, as I quickly put thoughts of an early retirement and a bit more travelling firmly on ice.

But somehow I don’t mind. Suddenly, him feeling safe and anchored with me is more important than my hopes for a bit of me-time. The simple pleasures of conversation, home made food, arguing about politics and family walks have made life more gentle, more manageable. Even the logistics of keeping an eye out for an ill parent become less problematic when I’m not having to commute for work every day.

My passport lies unrenewed after it expired last year at the back of a drawer – my travel wings clipped. The spangly party dresses hang limp in the wardrobe, and the high heeled shoes gather dust as an homage to my once favourite Brazilian-themed club which I’m not convinced I’ll ever see again. Just thinking about hundreds of bodies packed into a small space sweating, dancing and breathing in close proximity puts me thoroughly on edge.

Instead, I want to be outside where the air I’m breathing feels cleaner than before, the sounds around me are predominantly the sounds of nature and each season brings a renewed appreciation of the preciousness of life.

I’m trying to figure out if it’s the pandemic that’s affected me thus or just generally “getting old”. When the invites start to come I’ll be more selective than before.

I think I’ll be doing less hugging too. A good tight hug with someone you love is a moment of pure bliss and joy and connection – just as it should be. But the sort of random workplace hugging that has so little rhyme or reason, and that sees some people quite often unsure whether they’re in for a hug or a kiss or indeed both, has surely lessened the unique specialness of a hug.

We’ll have to ca’ a bit canny anyway. There are just so many different variables involved. Despite the welcome numbers of vaccinations and the decrease in infection rates, even with a couple of doses of the vaccine none of us want to risk transmitting the virus to a younger, as-yet-unvaccinated person. Those who have been affected permanently by the effects of Covid remind us of that.

We also don’t know how long our immunity might last once we’ve had the vaccine, and who knows how many mutations of the virus will pop up. Just looking at a country like India where a double mutant variation has been detected, is enough to make us all retain an element of caution especially when it comes to foreign travel, sadly.

Even the lateral flow testing with its 50-70% accuracy doesn’t offer the comfort that many of us would like to attend a large scale event or to get on a plane.

We have all gone through this pandemic together, and with restrictions starting to ease, many are now fully primed and ready for the beer garden from the 26th of April, eating at restaurants and queuing round the block for Primark. Others, with a strong sense of deja vu, and unshakeable fear will still be cautious, anxious and in no particular rush to go back to how things were.

It feels like this is the time for patience, tolerance and an understanding that this pandemic will have left its mark on all of us in a different way, and that’s okay.

We don’t know how long our immunity might last and who knows how many mutations will pop up