As I approach the 9th month of social distancing, I have come to understand and accept some of the challenges associated with the pandemic. Now let me be clear that my struggles do not come close to the struggles of those who have lost a job, home, or loved one. My struggle, in the grand scheme of things, is minute; it is an internal conflict.
Covid angst. If this term has not been coined, I now claim it! Though I am sure I can define it in an eloquent manner, I prefer to be precise. It is a sense of shittiness, plain and simple On challenging days, this shittiness is frustration, irritation, fear, and disappointment jumbled up together and it resides in my gut (now I know where those extra 10 lbs come from).
However, my goal is not to lament on Covid angst, but to move past it. I have, after all, tried to run from it, literally, but have failed. On a challenging day, I often find myself compulsively scrolling through my phone in hopes of finding a morsel of information that can put me at ease: that can make my shitty feeling go away. This, however, never works. Instead, I find myself behaving like an addict, blabbing comments, like "5 more minutes and then I'll get off my phone" only to spend another 30 minutes aimlessly checking and rechecking the same sites. And like an addict, it took me time to understand and accept that the phone, my drug of choice, only worsens the way I feel.
As in any great novel, a protagonist will struggle with both an internal and external conflict. I, the protagonist of my story, struggle with a feeling of angst while navigating the world that is paralyzed by a pandemic. So, moving forward, the resolution to this story is simple in theory but difficult in practice. I need to accept Covid angst and learn to live with it. Yes, some days will be shitty, and on those days, I take deep breaths and give myself permission to have a bad day and I do it with my phone off.
