I think everyone can agree that in the last year, these continued lockdowns have been tough. I am in Ontario in Canada, and we are currently in what seems like the worst situation that we have been in this whole time. Here things got better briefly, and then recently have just gotten a whole lot worse. My thoughts are with anyone fighting to beat Covid.
Yet, with all this for me right now, I am actually thriving in a few areas of my life because of the time the lockdown has given me. This, for me, is very confusing and something I will be talking a lot about with my therapist. I am confused because being comfortable here in Ottawa makes me nervous about being scared to leave and start the next chapter of my life. I know though that this fear is normal, and I don’t plan on letting it stop me from moving out and on, but some days I just want to stay comfortable in Ottawa forever. It’s hard to juggle all these feelings.
For close to a month, I have been starting to run regularly, something I’ve never quite done because always been a bit too busy. I have also been very productive in working on a future personal project. It is unlikely I would be working on this project if the world was running normally. So some days, I wake up and go through my day, and I feel content and fulfilled. Things are, for the most part, good in my life right now. But even though I feel like I am productive and am proud of myself for it, ultimately, I feel like I am on autopilot and not living my life just going through the motions.
Some days I wake up, and I am just pissed off and can’t shake it, even when I exercise or work on projects. This last Sunday, this hit me bad. I didn’t want to do anything; all I could think about were the things I currently can’t do. Even writing this today- I’m having a good day- it feels stupid, but Sunday, I was pissed off I couldn’t go out to eat and go to the mall. These seem like things we shouldn’t need, or we should be able to still get similar stimulation in other ways, online shopping or getting takeout. Eventually, when I couldn’t shake the grumpiness, I felt mad at myself that I was grumpy over how covid has affected me when it has affected other people in ways much worse.
And I now realize after some reflection, I have lost a lot, and it is ok for me to be upset about what I have lost even if some days I feel happy and other people have lost more. It is ok to let myself feel all my feelings. It’s weird when you have more happy days than sad days; the low days feel worse because they’re different from the day before. And this is confusing; I’m still trying to figure out how to navigate it.
I wanted to write this post to update everyone on how I am feeling, but I also wanted to share for anyone going through anything similar. I would be happy to talk to anyone feeling similar things who just needs a friend.