"I feel weird," I muttered while cooking dinner. It was partially to myself, but mainly to publicly proclaim these emotions to my boyfriend, acknowledging this full-body feeling and mental space that has consumed me as we march toward a post-pandemic world. A few quiet moments later, he responded, "well, that couldn't be any more vague, care to expand?"
I knew that I needed to say it out loud; to verbally process the weirdness I've been feeling inside, despite the world re-opening, despite the messages of positivity beginning to blast from the rooftops as vaccinations climb and Covid-19 cases shrink. These recent funky feelings have felt unjust. And yet, in spite of my attempt to shove them away, distracting my mind with new activities, I'm not ready to reface an old reality - or the #NewNormal *gag* if you will. To be frank, I feel like I've outgrown it.
This past year has been one of immense pressure. Devastation. Growth. Pulling. Resisting. Turbulence. Silence. Screaming. Reflection.
Hindsight is 2020 they say, and wow were ~they~ right.
Have you ever heard of survivor’s guilt? It’s the strange mental phenomenon where the survivor of a traumatic event feels a sense of guilt for living through it when others could not. The burden of "why me?" or more rawly, "why not me?" Living through 2020 alone is to walk alongside feelings of survivor’s guilt. Through the pandemic, through the police brutality, through the mass shootings. Through it all. That human experience? It's heavy and it's real. It’s only natural that re-adapting to a world post-pandemic would take some work.
Feeling Stuck: Over a Year of Trading Excitement for 'Eh'
I recently read an article in the New York Times by esteemed organizational psychologist Adam Grant. He introduced a concept that might help to explain these emotions of blah. Cue 'languishing.' It's the middle ground we're trapped in after living through the pandemic. It's not quite depression, and certainly not flourishing. It's just blah.
"Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021," writes Grant.
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2020 was a year of constant stress and turmoil. Our minds were running on high alert almost every moment of the day. Whether it was watching the news or stressing over touching a public doorknob and not having any hand sanitizer, little things were enormous.
"Part of the danger is that when you’re languishing," Grant continues, "you might not notice the dulling of delight or the dwindling of drive. You don’t catch yourself slipping slowly into solitude; you’re indifferent to your indifference."
Our plans were stripped from us during the pandemic. With the arrival of Covid-19, came a grand exit of our excitement for the future. Making plans went out the window. Often when I’d find myself actually making plans, someone would suddenly be exposed to a co-worker who had coronavirus or state-wide lockdown orders would come into effect. The list goes on and on. We came to swallow our excitement and expect letdowns.
Talking About Your Feelings (I Know, Ew)
A couple of days after I so eloquently expressed my feelings of weirdness, a fellow existentialist-obsessed-with-human-emotions and author Jedidiah Jenkins shared an Instagram caption that hit me right in the feels. He said, you guessed it: "The things I love feel weird now." SEE? None of us know how to perfectly explain these complex feelings - the only way we can try is to start. Start the conversation with your friends and family. Acknowledge that you feel off even though you can't put your finger on why.
"I’m vaccinated and so are my friends and we’re traveling and I feel weird. I feel anxiety," Jenkins continued. "I feel bad because ‘this is what I’ve been waiting for!!!’ But I worry about plans and being away from home for more than a few days. I just feel this gravity to my house."
We were all living in a state of total isolation for a year. Humans are not meant to be trapped in the confines of four walls. We are meant to connect - to hug, to laugh, to smile at strangers, and to see them smile back. Our 2020 experience was the antithesis of being human.
We can fight against our stagnancy by starting true and real conversations with the people that we love. We must connect over our feelings of disconnection. Talk about connect-ception.
After I saw Jed's caption, I came to this realization of connection. So, I swallowed this self-prescribed medicine and I did just that. I went on a walk with a friend who I hadn't seen in over a year. Okay, fine. We *met up outside of the farmers market for a ~covid-friendly~ twenty-minute catch up* a few months ago. That hardly counts. So we strolled to happy hour, joking about absurd stories from our pasts. And then we dove into the deep stuff. "It feels as if there’s constantly a dark cloud lingering above us," she said. Yup.
I shared Jed's post on my Instagram story, too. Another friend sent me a message. She took the words out of my brain (I'd say my mouth, but I think the words were still all scrambled in my mind at that point). She told me that she agreed. That she has been beating herself up for not being her pre-pandemic self. Double yup.
Having these conversations helped me realize that I wasn't the only one suffering from this post-covid world condition.
Source: Morgan Harper Nichols
How to Slowly Escape These Strange Feelings
The beauty in identifying the state of languishing is that we now have a tangible word to identify all this weirdness. So how can we start to inch our way out from this creep cave of ickiness? Here are a few ideas from Grant with a splash of some specific ways to implement:
Take on new challenges (setting a workout goal, learning a new skill, taking on a new project at work)
Immerse yourself in enjoyable experiences (hiking, a good meal, meeting with a friend, sitting in the sun)
Do meaningful work (volunteering, take an online course)
Staying focused & set some boundaries with your time (progress helps increase our sense of joy)
Make little goals (stretching until you can touch your toes, calling a friend once a week, finishing a book)
Slowly but surely, we will inch our way back to ourselves. We will emerge stronger and more connected after a year of cocooning. We can create a new reality that fits us better than the world we left behind in early 2020. I urge you to journal it out in the meantime. To reflect on the most important lessons learned during the pandemic. For me, it was slowing down and sitting still through the discomfort. It was the bliss of people sharing small wins on social media rather than bold brags. It was creating happiness rather than chasing it.