Photo by Adam Bixby on Unsplash
Yoga mats have been rolled up. Our sourdough starters are resting in the fridge. Bananas and flour were used up a long time ago, and there's quite frankly only so many chickpea curries we can make before they become as exciting as buttered noodles. Have we hit creative wasteland or am I missing something? Sure, many of us are still baking and knitting and making TikToks, but after so many phases of quarantine culture, I can't help but feel we've burnt out. People are already thinking about ways they can cancel their next online Hangout , have donated to one of the many projects that are supporting people hit the hardest by COVID-19, and I can't remember the last time someone told me that it's OK not to be productive during these confusing times.
I recently dug myself a little hole too, and I must say it felt weird when I came out of my cave (ironically within my quarantine cave) again to see what's going on. For a few days, I kept online contact with people to a bare minimum, hardly even used my voice to communicate with my boyfriend who I live with, and didn't really stay in touch with how people are distracting themselves from our shared reality. Perhaps my last post of the previous month already hinted at the fact that I'm not the only who's experiencing reality slowly settling in, and missing the liberties from our pre-lockdown lives.
We always knew that isolation was inevitably going to force us to suddenly confront our thoughts, but instead of processing them at the beginning of the crisis, I guess our bodies just went "nope, I'll go bake some bread instead". As if we're recovering from a break-up, many of us suddenly had a surge of energy, with high motivations to start working out, cooking healthily, maybe even getting into gardening amidst the additional stockpiling crisis and panic buying. I myself was hungry for distractions, and my mind was ready to suppress all isolation anxiety until I was ready to deal with it, which is why my cynical quarantine morning routine post wasn't described too far from the truth.
Now that the bread is baked and my plants watered, and I'm getting closer to the end of my first year at university, quarantine making me feel like I cheated towards its completion, I've got no choice but to fully confront reality. The government's recent, vague announcements didn't change anything for the better either, and have if anything only added more anxiety to the lives of millions of workers who will be expected to risk their own safety.
During the first two months in quarantine, I quickly decided to take everything day by day, as that's the only thing we could still control to a degree. As if I was waiting for a terribly exhausting movie marathon to end, I distracted myself mostly by looking at my phone and giving myself work to do. Sure, some parts of lockdown were rewarding too: I've painted and played more music than before. I even started working on a few freelance pieces, which I don't think I would've been able to do if it wasn't for all the time saved through the lack of travelling to work and uni.
But now I'm just... angry? Confused? Feeling dizzy because I've probably deprived myself of oxygen for not leaving the flat in three days? It's not impatience, that's not what it is. I don't want lockdown to be eased until we've finally got a proper strategy put into place that doesn't compromise anyone's safety and health for the sake of the "economy", which the current government pretends exists independently from its citizens. But with people in charge who are so out of touch with many of its citizens that they simply leave me and everyone else hopeless and frustrated, and projects that previously kept me distracted coming to an end, I can't help but wonder if there is going to be another quarantine phase at all, or whether to ask myself instead:
Is now the time to create an OnlyFans account?