Living in unprecedented times is nothing like as thrilling as it sounds. This past almost-year has been one of the toughest of our lives.
Straight out of the gate, things were weird – everyone was full of talk about how Shakespeare had written King Lear and baked four loaves of banana bread a day during the Black Death. Never mind that we were scared sideways, how lucky were we with all of this unexpected, empty time! Now there was nothing to stop us from learning conversational Korean or writing that TV series!
Korean? I thought, OK. Followed quickly by, hold on, what is wrong with us? At the time, chickpeas were more valuable than gold, the global supply lines of Nytol had run dry, I was spritzing myself with a Dettol spray as if it were Gucci Bloom – and now I was supposed to learn Korean? All I could manage was to lie on my bed, eating bags of Starmix, ordering hair dye and worrying about everyone I loved dying.
Shock was probably my strongest emotion. We were so used to powering through illnesses, it had become almost mandatory, especially in the work place: drink your Lemsip and keep marching. Suddenly, our own willpower wasn’t enough to cure us – which removed any pretence that we were in control. That was very scary.
And the thing is, my circumstances were a lot better than many others’. Both my husband and I already worked from home, so we didn’t have to make the uncomfortable adjustment. We don’t have kids, so there was no need for us to do a second job home-schooling them. (Honestly, I have bottomless admiration for those parents.)
Luckiest of all, a lengthy bout of depression 10 years ago had shown me that, no matter how solid and safe my life looks, it can fall apart very quickly. When everything went to hell with the pandemic, I knew that I’d survived worse. (Except for Zoom. Back when I’d been suicidally depressed, at least I hadn’t had to go on Zoom and be faced with the horrors of my neck for several hours a day.)
When we went into Lockdown 1, I was actually glad because I was freaking out about accidentally killing my mother by breathing invisible death too close to her. But who knew dystopia would be so... tedious? Or emotionally uncomfortable? All of a sudden, feelings I’d shoved down for years began floating upwards and popping into my conscious brain. Shameful behaviour from another existence reappeared to haunt me and old grudges decided to come back from the dead. Why now? I pleaded. Life is hard enough!
But it was precisely because life was so curtailed. In the normal run of things, I’d been able to keep out in front of anything I wasn’t keen on feeling. Busy, busy, busy, my life providing me with enough stimulation to keep me from the murky stuff, down there at my core.
With all of my usual distractions abruptly removed, I ate more Starmix, I clicked on more hair dye and I bought many, many neck creams. I also became obsessed with ordering foundations. It made no sense, I was going nowhere, but I never felt ‘right’ if there wasn’t a little package on its way to me. And still the feelings wouldn’t quieten down.
Ten years ago, during My Unpleasantness, breaking time down into small, manageable bites was how I’d survived. And it’s how I’ve Pandemicked. I regard getting through a morning as a small achievement. And building in rewards is important – such as allowing myself three Percy Pigs at carefully controlled intervals. Or day-watching telly. (Still feels mildly debauched to be watching Schitt’s Creek at 11.20 on a Tuesday morning.)
Gruelling as these last 10 months have been, we – you – are amazing. All the pieces of our lives have been flung into the air, we’ve no idea how they’ll look when they land and still we’re soldiering on: doing our jobs or dealing with the insecurity of unemployment or the boredom of furlough; enduring the fear that we or the people we love will get the virus. Or worse still, having lost someone to it; doing without hugs and affection, nights out, the cheeriness of time spent with lovely friends.
Seriously, when going to the dentist for two fillings is an occasion to dye your eyebrows and wear your new boots, things are bad.
Because so little praise is given by those in power, no one seems to get how brave, stoical and unselfish they (you) are being. Look at it this way: a killer virus is on the loose – the very thing disaster movies are made about! But bunkering down at home doesn’t seem as heroic as dodging snipers’ bullets in war-torn streets, so people aren’t registering how courageous they are.
None of us would willingly sign up for Hard Times (well, I wouldn’t) but Mother Nature’s consolation prize is that we emerge from them with new strength. We might not feel it but we’re more resilient than we were a year ago. We’ve learned stamina, we’ve got to know ourselves better, we’ve a fresh appreciation for simpler things, like walks in nature. And when we resume our old lives (which we will), we’ll be so grateful for the day-to-day blah we once took for granted.
Sadly, the one thing we haven’t learned from this weird interruption is compassion for ourselves. Right now, getting through a day without running through the streets screaming is an achievement. Tonight, when you get into bed, you should remind yourself that you’re a hero. Because you are. You’re a hero. I am. You are. We all are. (Well, nearly all...)
‘Grown Ups’ by Marian Keyes is out in paperback on 4 Feb (£8.99, Michael Joseph)