I’m Not Scared to Reenter Society. I’m Just Not Sure I Want To.
My city closed down March 18 2020. We reopened in June. I went back to work in the first wave in June. I had enough seniority to go back, but not on day shift. I went back on graveyard shift and have been on that shift since. I have had numerous openings to go back to day shift, but have not moved on them. I am not sure if I can go back to all that human interaction. I have gotten used to a life of isolation. We are on a skeleton crew at night. Very limited human contact. Many times I am the only person eating in the lunchroom. I get off work at 7 am. I can go shopping after work and the store is empty. Traffic is non existent. I have turned on my tv twice in the last two weeks, once just to to see if it still worked. It has got to the point where even people on tv bother me. I never planned on turning into a hermit, it just happened. Its not that bad actually. Watching sports used to have me yelling and screaming at the tv every night, the neighbors hated it. I can count the games that I have watched in the last year on one hand. I already know the outcome as the game is recorded, so there is a lot less emotion. I find that I have a lot less stress these days. No news, no sports, just internet and books. I have found a little bubble in the middle of a large, extremely loud, crime filled city. My own private Idaho. I like it!
There's been good, there's been bad. My guitar playing has reached a new level, but so has my drinking. I'm a pretty extroverted person--I like social interaction--but even I'm like "Oh yeah, how do you socialize again?" So for some folks it may be pretty daunting.
I can go either way. I will probably visit some friends, but I enjoy my shut-in life now.
I've always felt safer when I'm alone. And I have near-panic moments when people get too close to me physically. I'm not looking forward to larger crowds in stores and such again. To tell the truth the last 14 months of recommended/enforced physical separation has been kind of a relief to me.
I’ve always been an introvert and a homebody so the pandemic lockdowns didn’t affect me that much. That said, it will be nice to be socialize properly again. Since the pandemic started my SO’s bestie has had a baby, had that baby’s first birthday and has a second on the way all without having a proper party for already of those occasions. So it will be nice to have proper get togethers again.
Also, it would be nice to be able to go see the Whitecaps lose in person at BC place again. Even though it’s going to feel weird being in a big crowd again. I was watching highlights from the Indy 500 last weekend and was horrified at seeing a crowd like that.
Aside from not being able to go buy essentials from time to time due to all the insane lockdowns, my life hasn't changed at all. I've been living normally throughout this whole pandemic, refusing to let it change my life. I'll be the first person to ditch the mask, and finally be able to go to conventions and other events again.
I can understand people that have diminished immune systems from other afflictions, or hypochondriacs, but everyone else has no excuse not to go back to normal. I know I might seem hardline, but it's all a state of mind. I never let myself get scared at the beginning (and for what?), nor was I about to surrender.
For far too often, the human condition has let people fear what they don't understand. I've never been like that. Where most people will accept the word of others (possibly government or in this case, doctors) without question, I will not. I've seen a lot and been through a lot in life, and I refuse to surrender or retreat when the going gets tough.
How we react to events like this not only builds character, but helps define who we are. Vince Lombardi famously said, "The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have."
-J.
You're so brave and strong.
Phobias aren't things that can be switched off like a light. They're permanent and non-stop and are only relieved when the person with one gets out of the immediate area of whatever's provoking the agitated response.
I'm not scared to re-enter society, but working from home has been no different than going to the office, with the exception that we saved me several thousand dollars in daycare bills, gas for commuting, wear and tear, etc.
Despite saving all that money, our family really misses holiday get togethers, going to restaurants, travelling, going to movies, and most of the other things we could do pre-pandemic. My daughter also desperately misses playing and seeing her friends and craves any sort of social contact she can get, and doing it over Zoom just isn't the same as an in-person playdate. However, she has an auto-immune condition, so we've been extra careful and have avoided doing anything except going to the grocery store since the pandemic began.
Our only social outlet over the past year has been a few trips with another family in our 'bubble' to the river valley park system last summer, and we hope to do something like that again this year, but with the variants and my daughter being under 12, she cannot get vaccinated yet, so we're taking a wait and see approach now.
I'm hoping that by Christmas things may be back to a semblance of normal for us, with a vacation next spring as a reward.
WTF does this even mean?
Other than resuming going to customer premises and having them yap over my shoulder and NOT listen to anything I say? I've rather enjoyed 'drop it off, fuck off and I'll call you when it's done".
Other than that I'll have the same friends I always had and saw and we can once again go for shitty smorg on Fridays.
Never left society. Society left when I moved here.
It means that a lot of us are not ready to go back to the daily soap opera that was life before the shutdown. The daily drama, the office politics, the gossiping, the backstabbing, the ass kissing, the gridlocked commutes,the endless sea of unwashed humanity at the grocery store, the de-evolution that was Walmart at full capacity. Some of us have made the decision to never return to that world ever again.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/20 ... 142830001/