Covid Afterlife

As we learn to breathe again, we have to remember that all of us will come back to a new routine at different times, with deeply affected mental and physical health.

As we continue to do our best we must remember that our “best” looks different every day. Each person we interact with is doing their “best” for that day, too. As we learn to breathe again, we have to remember that all of us will come back to a new routine at different times, with deeply affected mental and physical health.

All I can share is my experience and I can confidently say that all my weaknesses have been exposed over the past 18 months. There were days where it felt like one long east coast snow day…the monochrome sweatshirts and sweatpants, the “cozy” aesthetic of all companies trying to market themselves to us the best way they know how. Other days I spent feeling that I was trapped and scared, unable to find hope anywhere. All of us spent time wondering when and sometimes if we’ll ever see our families again. There was something about knowing the emergency personnel of the world had also never seen anything like this, leaving you feeling like a kid in a department store trying to look for their mom. 

The stay-at-home orders and curfews (here in Los Angeles) felt like the end of the world, or that snow day. I experience much of life in extremes, as someone who lives with depression, anxiety, and adhd. What I found most overwhelming is that this pandemic had everyone around me also functioning in extremes. Some days that felt validating, like I wasn’t “crazy” for feeling anxious, always having something to blame it on. For me, finding peace in my home, the right candle, or the right book became the only way to survive each day without a panic. All of us were finding our survival mode. 

This meant I didn’t have the strength to maintain daily movement, nutritious foods, cooking, or making sure I was keeping a morning routine. I learned to prioritize my mental health in a whole new way, out of desperation. I started attending Al-Anon, a 12-step program, each day—sometimes twice a day. Community over the screen felt safe. The 7am meetings got me out of bed and I was motivated by choosing something good for myself right away. I began to collect tools for my figurative mental health toolbox. One of my most helpful tools became laying in the shower while the bath fills up. I noticed my nervous system would reset and I felt calmer if I could just be in my safe place for a few moments. Some of the other tools in my “toolbox” besides attending an Al-Anon meeting include reading a novel for fun, journaling, FaceTiming with my family and friends, watching a sermon on YouTube, picking a new Netflix series to binge watch with my husband, taking some deep breaths outside, staying hydrated, prioritizing therapy sessions even via telehealth services, and numbing out laughing at TikTok until my stomach hurts. Finding creative outlets like re-purposing a piece of furniture, bleach tie-dyeing, painting, and sometimes writing if I could keep my mind still enough to do that were helpful, too. 

Aside from the tools including hobbies that live in my toolbox, I also have found important keys to add to the box. Boundaries have become the key to my survival in this pandemic. The first few Sundays back in-person at church I quickly learned that I can’t schedule anything after church. Being in a room full of people with masks on would be enough stimulation for me that day.

Another important key has been learning to say NO. I learned to accept “fomo” in order to protect my mind. I learned that some days I will be ready to take my mask off and go to a park filled with people and some days I will feel unsafe grabbing coffee with my best friend, that has to be okay. Acceptance is the next key to survival in Covid and life after Covid. We have to accept that people are not going to respond logically or in a way that makes sense to you when it comes to invitations to participate in anything at all. We have to learn to take nothing personally because everyone is just doing the best they can with whatever their best is that day.

Grace and compassion are two keys that I’m constantly grabbing for. We have to have grace and compassion for ourselves and for everyone around us! This means flexibility with our bosses, leadership, and county officials. What may seem like the right call might turn out to be the worst call within 48 hours of numbers of cases rolling in.

Safe-space habits, hobbies that spark joy, creativity, boundaries, learning to say no, acceptance, and grace—I am still on a daily journey of reminding myself to sharpen these tools and keys in my toolbox. It’s empowering to know that I have developed so many mental health and physical health skills and habits while the world has been in a health crisis. We get to make a million tiny choices each day that make up our health—mind, body, and soul. The toolbox is imagery I use to remind myself that I’m well equipped for hard things, I can trust myself, and one day at a time, things will eventually be different.  

Many of us felt, and maybe are still feeling, stuck in the pandemic. There were countless jokes about how most of us still feel like It’s 2019 and we’re entering 2022 in a few short months. Let us not forget that so much has happened. So much becoming, so much refining, growing, and connecting. I’m proud of us for being so innovative, so malleable, and strong. We deserve to bring in 2022 with HOPE and joy while celebrating all the ways we’ve become new people together. As we learn to breathe, we’ve become our new selves together and that is something collective tragedy gifts us all with: natural compassion and gentleness with each other. We have been quicker to forgive, giving each other more space (literally and figuratively) to do our best. These are things I hope we take with us into life after Covid, the Covid Afterlife.

We are in fall now and we’re being reminded by nature to take another look at our lives; the crisp morning, the shedding of leaves, the promise of fresh air, the return to “normal” that has been so longed for. The truth is, we can’t return to normal, that was before. Now we have After. We can’t push this collective experience down like we’ve tried to do the other traumas of our life. An experience like a global pandemic demands to be felt. There’s shared grief here. We are all in the After of a moment in history that cannot be forgotten. 

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