When I look at the time and realize it’s been a year since we’ve been in this pandemic, it feels like a century — not just 12 months. Remembering my life pre-COVID is challenging: It almost doesn’t feel real. When I look at people on TV, I have to stop myself from freaking out, wondering how everyone stands so close together and without any masks. Much like ancient times are measured in BC and AD, it feels to me like time is measured in BC (before COVID) and DC (during COVID). Will there ever truly be an AC? Only time will tell.
One of the most jarring effects of COVID-19 has been our society’s collective depression and anxiety — not to mention my own anxiety. The ways in which our anxiety has risen as a group is astronomical. And while 2020 and apparently 2021 has been no picnic, I have learned so much about my anxiety this past year.
These are just seven things I learned about my anxiety this year — and I learned them not a minute sooner. Maybe if I had, I would have been a whole different person.
The days of being carefree are over
The first two weeks in lockdown I struggled to sleep, wrestling with stomach pain and insomnia. I worried whether the last week I was in the office would bring on COVID. I raced through article after article, realizing we knew so little about this virus — even though I had been following its path in the news since December, like waiting for a hurricane. When my daughter had an elevated temperature one day shortly after starting lockdown, I thought, “This is it — it’s coming.” Thankfully, her temperature went back to normal within a few hours.
Like some horror movie monster, each morning I woke, wondering if this was going to be the day COVID came for us, until time had passed and I had seen no one to cause a potential risk. This doesn’t mean I stopped being worried. I only wish I had! This whole year I’ve felt like a mouse dodging the cat, but it just means the initial panic has transitioned to a less interesting and absolutely unsexy fear.
Throughout the whole year though, like everyone else, I’ve had to choose between my physical and mental health and assess risks, all the while worrying what would happen if I ended up on a ventilator.
And this general anxiety over COVID grew into a more persistent anxiety over health things. Little random things I’d never worry about suddenly seemed like Google-worthy diseases and illnesses, which of course, they weren’t.
Bottom line? I’ve feared my mortality ever since I became a single parent, but COVID-19 pushed it to the limits. The fact is I’m no longer 20. I’m no longer invincible. I’m no longer carefree. My mortality has stayed in the back of my mind since March 13, 2020. It will never leave.
And with that said…
Google is my worst enemy
Googling random symptoms has never done anyone any real good. If you’ve become familiar with WebMD, Healthline, the Mayo Clinic, and other sites, my anxiety salutes you.
Life lesson learned this year?
Don’t google anything — unless it’s an online pandemic sale — and even then, maybe not.
My anxiety doesn't always look like worry
There were days I didn’t fret or obsessively check Google. There were days I didn’t read article upon article about this virus. But a part of me still felt irritable those days. Snappy. Like I was waiting for a shoe to drop.
That’s not “me being a bitch.” It wasn’t PMS. It wasn’t anger.
It was anxiety.
I’m the most outgoing person I know. I love meeting new people. I’m not shy. But that doesn’t mean I don’t worry. It doesn’t mean I’m not the master of googling my fake and real ailments and putting myself into a tizzy over real and imagined nonsense, which by the way, I am master of said activities.
Anxiety doesn’t always look like worry, shyness, or timidity. Sometimes it’s frustration. Sometimes it’s irritability. And sometimes, it’s a stream of energy that keeps you going like a human pinball, bouncing from one thing to the next like you’ve had 10 cups of coffee.
I need more downtime than I ever knew
Speaking of bouncing around, I could probably bounce around the Earth and visit everyone within a day with my energy and bubbliness. Prior to COVID, sitting down in general and doing nothing sounded like a death sentence for me.
And while this pandemic has given me way too much downtime and isolation and not enough Bridgerton or Cobra Kai for my liking, I realized in my previous “Before COVID” life I was doing too much, relaxing too little, and pushing myself more than I should have. I was stretching myself taffy-thin.
So I took the pandemic lull, and over the summer and spring, I planted my little butt in the sand and enjoyed the ocean view and read book after book after book. I took numerous walks. I enjoyed bike rides for the first time in ages. Simply being out in the fresh air was truly heaven.
I am a much happier and calmer person when I honor my need to rest. I am a much better person and significantly less worried when I get in touch with nature and myself. Truly, I don’t need to be stimulated to death. With that said, is summer here yet?
It’s around a lot more than I’d care to admit
When you’re home alone as a single parent with just your kid to drive you crazy, what else was I to do other than work out, read, and watch Netflix constantly?
While all of you were baking pandemic bread and growing your backyard organic gardens, I took solid inventory of how often I was feeling anxious and survey says: more than I truly realized.
I stepped back and could see that many times when I responded to people or my kid, that anxiety was along for the ride with me. Really, I was reacting when I really needed to take a moment to breathe and respond. Just acknowledging this made a huge difference for me, and now, even a year later, I can tell when I am reacting versus when I am responding.
Hint: Responding is way better for you!
I had to do something about it
Knowledge is power.
Once I realized that my snapping at my kid randomly over something totally stupid or my rushing too fast to answer a coworker’s email was the product of my genetic anxiety, and further burdened by pandemic living, I realized I had to do something about it.
And while my enviable friends made delicious gourmet meals at home and knitted baby blankets and political gear, I took up meditation through an awesome app called Calm. I got inspired to pursue mindfulness through an old school friend and cognitive behavioral therapist, Dr. Pete, author of Mindfulness Workbook for Beginners: Exercises and Meditations to Relieve Stress, Find Joy, and Cultivate Gratitude.
And on the days I meditated, I felt amazing! It was like I placed my body and soul right on the beach and could act in a more purposeful and peaceful way.
It will bleed into everything
Because at the end of the day, it hit me: If I am not calm, my daughter won’t be either. The people around me won’t be either. And I will miss out on joyous moments because my worry will be front and center. Not to mention, I will have significantly less joy if too much of my time is robbed by worrying over real or imagined things.
So while I’m anxiously awaiting (hey, I can’t be perfect) COVID to get the hell out of here, I can say that truly this year of pandemic life hasn’t been without its blessings, even if they weren’t always easy to see. What I gained from this year stays with me — virus be damned or not.
