Today, Monday 23rd March 2020, marks day 7 for me of being in quarantine mode, in a nationwide bid to slow the rapid spread of the covid-19 virus. Quarantine for me means limited movement and ventures outside due to living with my highly immuno-compromised partner. It’s being stuck between two rooms in a very small flat without a balcony or garden. Daily life has gone from 7am starts, busy commutes to work, evening pub meets with mates, going to the gym 3 times a week and constant task lists to something that I’ve never experienced before.
My current situation comprises of waking slowly, at 8am. Showering for as long as I want to and brewing up a coffee before sitting at my kitchen table to work until five. Every meal that I’ve eaten in the past week has been homemade, nutritious, and tasty (aside for the odd spicebag but hey, we’ll let it slide). In the evenings, I read books, do yoga, chat about the world with my partner. I feel relaxed most of the time. I’m happier than I have been in months, in some ways. Is this what the apocalypse is supposed to feel like?
Don’t get me wrong, when I say that I’m relaxed, as I am still absolutely terrified about what’s going on in the world right now. Most days, I find myself almost addicted to my phone, constantly refreshing my newsfeed to read more grim stats, more startling news, more updates about how many people are infected, dying, and dead. Sometimes, it feels like I’m ripping at a hangnail that’s not ready to fall off- tugging until I feel pain and see blood, leaving it a few minutes and then tugging it all over again. I have moments when, thinking about the chaos that’s unfurling around me, I feel as though my heart is going to physically burst out of my chest with anxiety, robbing me of breath and making hot sweat bead on the small of my back- and then doing it all over again when I think that these anxiety symptoms are actually symptoms of the ‘rona.
I have thought frantically, obsessively about my family members. I don’t know when I’ll see them next. My grannies, grandads, mam, dad, sister, cousins, aunts, uncles. I want to hug them and eat with them and watch tv with them and smell their skin and I don’t know when that will be possible. Sometimes it feels like it will never be possible. Facetime is only a novelty for so long, until it feels like your family are trapped in a box- the same box that gives you all the bad news every morning- and they’re never going to get out.
I am a ball of anxiety and rage and sadness.
Yet amidst this, I feel so calm.
Yes, this is silly and ironic and paradoxical.
As someone who often struggles with anxiety, I am no stranger to the feeling of looming dread. The feeling that something bad is going to happen, has happened, or is currently happening. Oftentimes I lie awake at night, heart pumping so fast I can barely breathe, about nothing at all. Literally nothing. My brain can be blank, yet my heart is there, pounding away, making sure that my body knows it’s under threat. What threat? My brain asks. IDK, just a threat, replies my body.
As fucked up as it sounds, it’s almost comforting to now know that there is genuine danger and doom in the world at the moment. A reason to be anxious. And for some reason, I don’t feel as physically anxious as I was before all this anymore. To be totally honest, I don’t know why this is. Is it because there is genuine reason to be terrified now, and it’s not actually as bad as my body or brain was anticipating in the height of my worst spells of anxiety? Or is it because my pre-quarantine life was too hectic for me?
In some weird, awful, messed up way, quarantine has forced me to slow down. I’ve had to stop living by lists, and setting daily, weekly, and monthly tasks that I told myself I had to achieve. I’ve stopped going to bed feeling guilty that some ridiculous task list wasn’t finished, and I’m taking every day as it comes. In quarantine, doing things that I would previously see as “YOU HAVE TO DO THIS OR YOU’RE A BAD PERSON” like reading, yoga, life admin and exercising, have become relaxing and rewarding experiences. With all of my previous self-discipline and list making, I had turned the things that I loved most, my hobbies, into work. Into things that I couldn’t choose to do- they were things that I HAD to do. Oftentimes, I would come home from work exhausted, hating the fact that I had to do 20 minutes of yoga before bed because my list told me so. Ridiculous, huh?
Anxiety does this to you. It makes you feel as though you, as a person, are worthless if you’re not pressuring yourself to be better constantly. Better for me is yoga, reading, education, exercise- all good things, but not when the reason you’re doing them is simply because you feel guilty if you don’t.
As my life slows down, and the pace of my days roll out more peacefully, I have one goal. I want to start embracing the slowness of life. I want my days to feel long and joyful, even when things go back to normal. I desperately want to appreciate small things again, like how it feels to read a book and not want to stop, or how it feels to take off your shoes, light an incense, and step onto your yoga mat. I want to be able to say no to people when they ask me for drinks, and not feel shame and guilt if I decide not to go to the gym after work.
The world is a terrifying, scary, and dangerous place right now, but if you take anything out of it, know that happiness, meaning, and purpose can be found in the tiniest of things. They may even be right in front of you without you noticing it, like they were for me.
-Avril xox
Avril Kate 