I don't feel it aged me, I feel it robbed me. When you're retired and in good health, these are the years you want to spend traveling, take these long breaks to discover other places and people, and that got taken away for about 2 years. On the other hand we did road trips that we probably wouldn't have done otherwise. And I joined writing classes and workshops (online) to satisfy the need to get in touch with people. I wouldn't have been so active in social media, networked so much with other writers without the isolation. And as a result, I wouldn't have found new magazines to submit to and be published (a lot). This isn't making lemonade from lemons. Maybe I would have done all these things anyway, but the crisis gave me a kick in the behind (and removed distractions, lol!). Pushed me. You can't wallow in fear. You gotta move.
I feel that it changed me, not that it aged me. In some ways, it seemed like another thing thrown into the mix of awfulness that had become part of my life under Trump. So many, many ugly things were made visible in that time (and still in this time) that the pandemic seemed another madness heaped on top of that awfulness. I remember Larry McMurtry and Oliver Sacks saying that aging made them less tied to the politics of the world, but that has not happened to me. I still feel gut-wrenched and now even more pessimistic about our country moving in a positive direction. I mean, if you can't get people to watch out for each other during a major health crisis--or at least agree that one is happening when a million people died of it--then what does that say about our capacity for a democracy that looks out for the little person? I mean, I was afraid during the pandemic (nights were the worst; my husband would say "let's get out and drive around for a while" and I would say "for what? to look at everything that is now closed to us?" It would just make me more depressed). And then my mother, who was pretty vital at 81, had Covid and then a stroke, and she is just not the same person she was before all that, and it's made me afraid.
Some of my pandemic depression has lifted, but not a whole lot of my cautiousness about other people and places has. I still won't go to most places where crowds congregate, including movie theaters (we had a shooting at one in my city in Lafayette, LA, and I just don't trust people in crowds of that size; I decided to teach online, too, because with all the school shootings, I figure it's just a matter of time before one happens at mine--everyone seems to want to solve their problems with guns). Anyway, not what you asked entirely, but maybe the pandemic and everything around it did age me, though I don't like the idea that "aging" and "pessimism" or "realism" go hand in hand. I do know I am a lot more afraid, and maybe that's part of aging, too.
Thanks for acknowledging pandemic isn’t over! And it DEFINITELY aged me at least ten years! I turned 66 in 2020 about 3 months into the pandemic and I felt vibrant, vital, connected, and young! Now at 69 I feel so much older than before the pandemic and it shows too. I often feel a sense of impending doom, the end of life looms large now and time seems to be shrinking and contracting instead of endless and full of possibility. I am working to get my vitality back but I’m highly anxious, traumatized, and my world has shrunk. Thank you for asking and acknowledging this truth.
Did the pandemic age me? Yes, YES, it sure fucking did.
I was very struck by that remark, too. A couple of my dearest friends and I have spoken of the same pandemic phenomena: the acceleration of years we experienced. Not the acceleration of AGE, per se, but of years -- if that makes any sense. I have to say that 6 months before covid hit, my mom had died and I had spent the previous 2 years taking care of her. (And we had to move from my childhood home in there, too.) Truthfully, I had already felt so depleted when my family and I had moved upstate that I feel like covid kicked me in the ass even more. I was a miles upon miles foot traveler in NYC, although that had even slowed down when my mom was ill. I had had all these...intentions when we moved to Catksill that were struck down like someone getting a strike at bowling. Whoosh. Gone. I had never considered myself vain but I paid attention to how I put myself together -- mostly because it made ME feel good. But, suddenly, all my clothes were...wrong. My face, my skin...I struggled to recognize myself. The matte red lipstick I had worn for years and years suddenly made me look like a clown. All this to say, without a doubt, covid definitely added unexpected years to me which has sort of fucked with my head -- as if getting older in and of itself wasn't enough.
Time did begin to float and bubble during the darkest days of the pandemic. I had the unusual experience of caring for my dying parents in an assisted living situation at a time when no visitors were allowed. Our parents needed a lot of help, and my sisters and I didn’t want them to die alone. We registered as self-employed caretakers and were admitted. I think we were the only family members in the entire complex. Being locked in a room with a dying man and a woman with dementia--both of whom happen to be your parents and with whom you have a boatload of issues--it was very surreal. Time has not gone back to what it was before. Of course, I wrote an essay about it and all that was happening around me (politics, the rightwing turn of my parents, death sitting in the room with us, etc.) Because these are the things in life we are desperate to make sense of. And Sari, you are right--the pandemic isn’t over. In May one of my lifelong friends, who was immunocompromised, died of complications of COVID.
I think the pandemic liberated me to experience slowness in a contented way. It’s an essential part of aging well, but I avoided it before the pandemic. Now, at 65, I seek it.
Covid didn’t limit my world. Ironically it opened me up to a bunch of new worlds which have led me to continue growing and expanding. This is all largely due to zoom! I just discovered several communities that I became part of on zoom, which have led to some productive And rewarding activities, some of which have been income producing. In 2020 and I was about to turn 80 so my 80th birthday celebration was a bust but that was no big deal in retrospect. I was able to continue teaching via zoom, and though it wasn’t ideal , I completed a full semester of my class at the University, and I think the following spring of 2021 it was a hybrid class in person and zoom. Anyway, that kept me occupied and connected with young people which I have always enjoyed. OK, so I was denied a couple of trips. I had been looking forward to, but Covid forced me to reach out and discover many new things. I feel younger at 83 than I ever expected to.
I'm not sure the pandemic aged me but it did change my life in a way I would never have expected. The impact of extended lockdowns, withdrawal from the world and being forced to spend time with myself prompted a crisis that resulted in an Autism diagnosis at 37! I have spent the last 18 months trying to unpick what that means. It's not that I feel older or younger, most days I feel like someone else entirely, like after nearly 40 years of masking and gaslighting I am finally getting to know the real me! I've been writing about this over at AutCasts, if anyone wants to join me on this journey! https://autcasts.substack.com
If it didn’t age me per se, it definitely changed me. I became very used to doing nothing. And this trait has stayed with me. I had terrible social anxiety afterwards, and it took me about a year to “ get back out there.” I did an immense amount of online shopping during the pandemic, and that has become an ingrained habit. I have not been in a department store since 2019. And I feel cheated by the loss of vital years.
The only good thing about the 2019-2020 year of isolation is that my adult son lived with us again while he studied for the bar exam. An extra year with him so close by was a blessing.
I’ve thought less about how it’s aged me, than my disturbing inability to get my mind around what happened back there and felt so unforgettable at the time.
It's nice to hear someone else describe precisely how I feel when I attempt to socialize again these days! So much awkwardness happening...My executive functioning skills are at a serious lag from all the decision fatigue of the last few years, and my hair did rapidly go from gray to white...! I'm hoping there's a bounce-back period in the coming years.
As an introvert I loved being quarantined.I am also lucky enough not to have had Covid.I look back on those years in two ways..an amorphous glob of time or forgotten it altogether...my memories start last year.At 75 could do without being robbed of three years and only slowly getting going again.A recent hospitalisation..with women far more I'll than I..have given me another push.But I suspect "Long Covid" has many forms.
I feel like the pandemic hastened my midlife crisis, haha. I was in my house, terrified for my wellbeing and the wellbeing of my family, feeling the seconds tick by, for two years, until the vaccines rolled and I felt marginally safer to relax a little.
Since we were all able to get vaccinated, I have picked up pole dancing. Hosted a record four parties at my house, something I would hardly ever have done beforehand. We celebrated Chinese New Year with the appropriate number of courses and rituals with friends. We hosted a cookout. I've gone up for positions at work and personally I never would have attempted to before. Would I have done it anyway? Maybe. Eventually.
The pandemic imbued me with a sense of social desperation, almost- the need for community so loud, even if that meant going WAY outside of my comfort zone. Joining a weird fringe gym for weird fringe hobbies is a great way to have a community ingrained, haha.
Sari, everything you wrote resonates... I have long had the thought in my head now that I feel much older than in 2019, exponentially so. My mother passed late that year, followed by a beloved feline, so the pandemic brought grief piled on grief, plus some guilt about my grief! The resulting anxiety takes its toll, for sure, and I am working to turn around this mindset. I appreciate some of the more uplifting comments here, and am reminding myself of the grace of working from home, how that has manifested into a long-term arrangement and allowed me to live in a more peaceful locale. Onward and upward.
I don't feel it aged me, I feel it robbed me. When you're retired and in good health, these are the years you want to spend traveling, take these long breaks to discover other places and people, and that got taken away for about 2 years. On the other hand we did road trips that we probably wouldn't have done otherwise. And I joined writing classes and workshops (online) to satisfy the need to get in touch with people. I wouldn't have been so active in social media, networked so much with other writers without the isolation. And as a result, I wouldn't have found new magazines to submit to and be published (a lot). This isn't making lemonade from lemons. Maybe I would have done all these things anyway, but the crisis gave me a kick in the behind (and removed distractions, lol!). Pushed me. You can't wallow in fear. You gotta move.
I feel that it changed me, not that it aged me. In some ways, it seemed like another thing thrown into the mix of awfulness that had become part of my life under Trump. So many, many ugly things were made visible in that time (and still in this time) that the pandemic seemed another madness heaped on top of that awfulness. I remember Larry McMurtry and Oliver Sacks saying that aging made them less tied to the politics of the world, but that has not happened to me. I still feel gut-wrenched and now even more pessimistic about our country moving in a positive direction. I mean, if you can't get people to watch out for each other during a major health crisis--or at least agree that one is happening when a million people died of it--then what does that say about our capacity for a democracy that looks out for the little person? I mean, I was afraid during the pandemic (nights were the worst; my husband would say "let's get out and drive around for a while" and I would say "for what? to look at everything that is now closed to us?" It would just make me more depressed). And then my mother, who was pretty vital at 81, had Covid and then a stroke, and she is just not the same person she was before all that, and it's made me afraid.
Some of my pandemic depression has lifted, but not a whole lot of my cautiousness about other people and places has. I still won't go to most places where crowds congregate, including movie theaters (we had a shooting at one in my city in Lafayette, LA, and I just don't trust people in crowds of that size; I decided to teach online, too, because with all the school shootings, I figure it's just a matter of time before one happens at mine--everyone seems to want to solve their problems with guns). Anyway, not what you asked entirely, but maybe the pandemic and everything around it did age me, though I don't like the idea that "aging" and "pessimism" or "realism" go hand in hand. I do know I am a lot more afraid, and maybe that's part of aging, too.
Thanks for acknowledging pandemic isn’t over! And it DEFINITELY aged me at least ten years! I turned 66 in 2020 about 3 months into the pandemic and I felt vibrant, vital, connected, and young! Now at 69 I feel so much older than before the pandemic and it shows too. I often feel a sense of impending doom, the end of life looms large now and time seems to be shrinking and contracting instead of endless and full of possibility. I am working to get my vitality back but I’m highly anxious, traumatized, and my world has shrunk. Thank you for asking and acknowledging this truth.
Did the pandemic age me? Yes, YES, it sure fucking did.
I was very struck by that remark, too. A couple of my dearest friends and I have spoken of the same pandemic phenomena: the acceleration of years we experienced. Not the acceleration of AGE, per se, but of years -- if that makes any sense. I have to say that 6 months before covid hit, my mom had died and I had spent the previous 2 years taking care of her. (And we had to move from my childhood home in there, too.) Truthfully, I had already felt so depleted when my family and I had moved upstate that I feel like covid kicked me in the ass even more. I was a miles upon miles foot traveler in NYC, although that had even slowed down when my mom was ill. I had had all these...intentions when we moved to Catksill that were struck down like someone getting a strike at bowling. Whoosh. Gone. I had never considered myself vain but I paid attention to how I put myself together -- mostly because it made ME feel good. But, suddenly, all my clothes were...wrong. My face, my skin...I struggled to recognize myself. The matte red lipstick I had worn for years and years suddenly made me look like a clown. All this to say, without a doubt, covid definitely added unexpected years to me which has sort of fucked with my head -- as if getting older in and of itself wasn't enough.
Time did begin to float and bubble during the darkest days of the pandemic. I had the unusual experience of caring for my dying parents in an assisted living situation at a time when no visitors were allowed. Our parents needed a lot of help, and my sisters and I didn’t want them to die alone. We registered as self-employed caretakers and were admitted. I think we were the only family members in the entire complex. Being locked in a room with a dying man and a woman with dementia--both of whom happen to be your parents and with whom you have a boatload of issues--it was very surreal. Time has not gone back to what it was before. Of course, I wrote an essay about it and all that was happening around me (politics, the rightwing turn of my parents, death sitting in the room with us, etc.) Because these are the things in life we are desperate to make sense of. And Sari, you are right--the pandemic isn’t over. In May one of my lifelong friends, who was immunocompromised, died of complications of COVID.
I think the pandemic liberated me to experience slowness in a contented way. It’s an essential part of aging well, but I avoided it before the pandemic. Now, at 65, I seek it.
Covid didn’t limit my world. Ironically it opened me up to a bunch of new worlds which have led me to continue growing and expanding. This is all largely due to zoom! I just discovered several communities that I became part of on zoom, which have led to some productive And rewarding activities, some of which have been income producing. In 2020 and I was about to turn 80 so my 80th birthday celebration was a bust but that was no big deal in retrospect. I was able to continue teaching via zoom, and though it wasn’t ideal , I completed a full semester of my class at the University, and I think the following spring of 2021 it was a hybrid class in person and zoom. Anyway, that kept me occupied and connected with young people which I have always enjoyed. OK, so I was denied a couple of trips. I had been looking forward to, but Covid forced me to reach out and discover many new things. I feel younger at 83 than I ever expected to.
I'm not sure the pandemic aged me but it did change my life in a way I would never have expected. The impact of extended lockdowns, withdrawal from the world and being forced to spend time with myself prompted a crisis that resulted in an Autism diagnosis at 37! I have spent the last 18 months trying to unpick what that means. It's not that I feel older or younger, most days I feel like someone else entirely, like after nearly 40 years of masking and gaslighting I am finally getting to know the real me! I've been writing about this over at AutCasts, if anyone wants to join me on this journey! https://autcasts.substack.com
It’s safe to say we all aged by three years? And the toll of three years seems to be exponential the older one is.
If it didn’t age me per se, it definitely changed me. I became very used to doing nothing. And this trait has stayed with me. I had terrible social anxiety afterwards, and it took me about a year to “ get back out there.” I did an immense amount of online shopping during the pandemic, and that has become an ingrained habit. I have not been in a department store since 2019. And I feel cheated by the loss of vital years.
The only good thing about the 2019-2020 year of isolation is that my adult son lived with us again while he studied for the bar exam. An extra year with him so close by was a blessing.
I’ve thought less about how it’s aged me, than my disturbing inability to get my mind around what happened back there and felt so unforgettable at the time.
https://open.substack.com/pub/adambnathan/p/requiem-for-the-pandemic-stella-blue?r=16ouqx&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
It's nice to hear someone else describe precisely how I feel when I attempt to socialize again these days! So much awkwardness happening...My executive functioning skills are at a serious lag from all the decision fatigue of the last few years, and my hair did rapidly go from gray to white...! I'm hoping there's a bounce-back period in the coming years.
As an introvert I loved being quarantined.I am also lucky enough not to have had Covid.I look back on those years in two ways..an amorphous glob of time or forgotten it altogether...my memories start last year.At 75 could do without being robbed of three years and only slowly getting going again.A recent hospitalisation..with women far more I'll than I..have given me another push.But I suspect "Long Covid" has many forms.
I feel like the pandemic hastened my midlife crisis, haha. I was in my house, terrified for my wellbeing and the wellbeing of my family, feeling the seconds tick by, for two years, until the vaccines rolled and I felt marginally safer to relax a little.
Since we were all able to get vaccinated, I have picked up pole dancing. Hosted a record four parties at my house, something I would hardly ever have done beforehand. We celebrated Chinese New Year with the appropriate number of courses and rituals with friends. We hosted a cookout. I've gone up for positions at work and personally I never would have attempted to before. Would I have done it anyway? Maybe. Eventually.
The pandemic imbued me with a sense of social desperation, almost- the need for community so loud, even if that meant going WAY outside of my comfort zone. Joining a weird fringe gym for weird fringe hobbies is a great way to have a community ingrained, haha.
COVID+ losing friends+ financial loss+ political stress=
Sari, everything you wrote resonates... I have long had the thought in my head now that I feel much older than in 2019, exponentially so. My mother passed late that year, followed by a beloved feline, so the pandemic brought grief piled on grief, plus some guilt about my grief! The resulting anxiety takes its toll, for sure, and I am working to turn around this mindset. I appreciate some of the more uplifting comments here, and am reminding myself of the grace of working from home, how that has manifested into a long-term arrangement and allowed me to live in a more peaceful locale. Onward and upward.