Pandemic Journal Entry - 4/3/22

Here was my entry for this week for UCONN’s Pandemic Journal Project.  You can find the homepage for the project here: https://pandemic-journaling-project.chip.uconn.edu/

Question: How has the coronavirus pandemic affected your life in the past week?  Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

The pandemic seems to be waning.  Things are becoming more normal.  In my area mask restrictions are gone.  You don’t have to wear a mask as long as your fully vaccinated or boosted (which I am), but even if you aren’t there is no provision in the rule change to ask for proof of vaccination.  It’s on the honor system.  

Even so, I’ve noticed a number of people still wearing masks on the street or in the stores.  They stand out, are more prominent than before.  I sometimes wonder if there is the beginning of another surge being talked about in the news.  But when I check, things seem to be proceeding along the same downward path.  

At the store, I saw that the cashier was wearing a mask.  None of the others were.  Something prompted me to ask him why he was still wearing one.  He looked me in the eyes.  A very direct look.  I added quickly that my understanding was that you didn’t have to wear a mask any more.  That it was by choice.  

He said, “Exactly that.  I’m wearing it by choice.”  

I apologized, said that I didn’t mean to be so intrusive, gathered my stuff and left.  

I think that part of me has seen how mask wearing and other features of the rules to slow the spread of the virus become a political choice as well as a health choice.  I obeyed the rules and wore my mask when needed as much to show I supported the measures as to show I wanted no one to worry around me about catching the virus.  This viewpoint made me wonder if still wearing a mask while the rules were becoming more lax had some similar politically based viewpoint behind it.  I think I made a subconscious assumption that there had to be something more than protecting one’s health behind it.  

A sign of how much the pandemic has pushed me from other people and understanding their feelings?  I don’t know.  

Question: Has the pandemic prevented you from living up to your potential in any way?  If so, give an example or two.  

For me, the most prominent personal issue I’ve had to deal with as a result of the pandemic would be more readily described as an exacerbation of an issue I was previously trying to deal with rather than an prevention of living to my potential.  

I have difficulties when it comes to socializing or meeting new people.  I don’t think of myself as an “introvert” per se, though I think others might label me as such.  I am very comfortable dealing with people in structured circumstances, such as work, or in an activity related to a club or “meet-up” I might have joined.  Situations where there is a primary focus to the gathering or the interaction with other people.  A very high percentage of my social interactions have come out of such situations.  Joining a language group to practice Japanese, a language I study, is the primary example.  From weekly get togethers to practice and study with each other, it becomes relatively easy to have more tangental meetings such as having a “movie night” together as a group, or going together to a new ramen restaurant opening up somewhere, or a Japanese cultural festival being held close by.  From these situations, it’s another step to determine if someone there that I’m interested in seeing outside of the group has similar feelings toward me.  

As I write this, I realize that every romantic partner I’ve had over the last 15 years has been someone I’ve met through such club or meet-up activities.  Without exception.  

The COVID pandemic, by eliminating face to face meetings and activities, eliminated my social life.  This is not hyperbole.  The impact has been very real. 

For the purposes of study, online meetings have replaced some of that interaction, but by no means replaces the opportunities lost to meet and get to know someone to that degree.  Indeed, with the ability to meet someone literally half a world a way, it can times underscore the isolation caused by the pandemic.  When you meet someone that you enjoy talking with, that you might even feel some sort of connection and possibility if you could meet them face to face, their location a dozen time zones away turns these feelings into mere fantasies at best.  

Even worse, there is an impetus to the habits I’ve developed over these last couple of years.  I’ve gotten used to making due with the limited channels the pandemic has left me.  I’ve been asked by members of the group I’m a co-organizer for as to when we can start meeting face to face again.  Rather than being excited about the prospect, knowing the benefit it gave me directly, I find myself feeling unsure about trying to set up such activities.  My schedule has been remade to accommodate the online meetings.  There are people that join now that would be cut off from them if I returned to face to face meetings because they live in another country.  And every time I’ve made myself look into the possibility of hosting in person meetings again, another surge has come along to quash the idea.  

When I’m at my most discouraged times, I have the thought that the pandemic only accelerated the eventual time when I’d have to face the rest of my life alone.  

In previous entries, I’ve talked about how, in other parts of my life, the pandemic has been an unexpected benefit.  My situation at work, and by extension my financial situation, are much better than they wore before the pandemic.  But as they say, money doesn’t buy happiness.  And neither does job security.  They can be a foundation for a life, but any life worth living needs more than that.