©Illustration by Sofía Alvarez
These days, every time I bring up the dark ages of lockdown & Covid I encounter either solar-system-high eye-rolls or collective sighs of exasperation. Everyone’s done with Covid, and who can blame them? The media are sick and tired of covering it – it’s all they did for a full year; politicians are gladly switching the topic to other pressing yet less controversial issues; and twenty-year-olds? Well… We’re just happy that’s all behind us now… but is it though?
For almost two years we were literally locked away from all forms of social interactions – which, in theory, our 20’s should’ve been all about. No tinder dates, no hanging out with friends, no one but the cashier at our local supermarket.
Some of us had to learn how to grieve without saying goodbye. Some of us got stuck with the people we loved, and sometimes that was a blessing, but other times those relationships imploded from the pressure. Some of us started baking bread and working out, but some of us only had ourselves, our fridges, Netflix, and 10sqm of breathing room. And don’t even get me started on Zoom.
Point is, this isn’t what our grandparents had in mind when they told us our twenties were going to be “the best years of our lives”. None of this was supposed to happen. And none of us could’ve seen this coming. Climate change? Sure. A war? Plausible. But a world-consuming middle-ages-reminiscent pandemic? No.
So, now that we’re kickstarting 2023, perhaps it’s time we address the gigantic generational trauma in the room.
We’re all so eager to move on that we’re acting as though it never happened, as if we could just go back to the way things used to be before. That’s a valid reaction, but it’s not a sustainable one.
It’s time we discuss how the Covid-era changed us and how it keeps affecting us in our daily lives. Cut all that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" crap. It’s a tough conversation, but it’s one we can face together.
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[This issue of our ¼ life crisis newsletter is merely our attempt at starting what we deem to be an important conversation on the lasting toll covid and lockdown had on our generation’s mental health. It does not aim, in any way, nor by any means, to question the political decisions establishing lockdowns. It also does not mean to deviate attention from the pressing and ongoing critical situation in hospitals, where healthcare professionals are succumbing to the overflow of covid patients in ICUs across the world, due the lack of means they dispose of to handle the crisis.]
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