Finding meaning during COVID-19
Zahra
Monotonous. 10 letters. 4 syllables. You might notice that the main body of the word is a palindrome - that is, if you’ve stared at it long enough. When you stare out of the same window that overlooks the same empty street, with the same empty stores. When you stare at the same little screen, with the same faces in the same little boxes. When you call the same family and friends that you wish you could see in person, and talk about the same routine, the same topics, the same old gossip. Monotonous. Everyday seems to blend into the same day.
Being a student during COVID has probably been one of the biggest challenges that I have faced so far. The high expectation for academic performance during the pandemic has not changed - even though our lives seem almost stagnant, students are expected to exhibit the same enthusiasm and work ethic as they did pre-COVID. Some professors were understanding - allowing for extensions and providing extra credit. However, most professors will preach about “taking care of ourselves during these tough times” or “prioritizing our mental health” and will immediately follow up this conversation with 3 assignments, 4 upcoming tests with no curve, and a 2 hour long pre-recorded lecture. Do you sense the irony here?
As an international student, it seems as though the pandemic has robbed me of a break. For any college student, myself included, home was a break - from school, chores, and trivial drama - a chance for my family to take care of me. Unlike other friends, whose homes might be a car or train ride away, the 19 hour flight back to my home was an impossible option. I had to create a new home for myself.
While I watched others escape home for a week or two when things became too heavy or too much, I put up more pictures on my wall - of my parents, my brother, my 2 cats, and the new puppy who I had yet to meet. While I watched my friends' parents drop off home-cooked dishes or groceries for the upcoming week, I was scouring the internet for “quick and easy college friendly meals.” While my housemates planned small get-togethers for their birthdays, inviting family and friends from home - I scheduled another Zoom birthday, coordinating the various time zones to make sure it was suitable for everyone to join. It seemed unfair.
Don’t get me wrong - I have an amazing group of people around me (who I now call my second family) that continuously showed me love and support during this time. A roommate’s family that took me in for thanksgiving; best friends who always had an ear to lend; family-style meals cooked together with my housemates. Yet, for some reason, I always felt like I was constantly overworked. I was drained. I had lost all of my motivation, ambition and will to socialize. I was no longer finding pleasure in activities that I used to be extremely excited about. As someone who is sometimes intensely extroverted, I was struggling to commit to plans, worried that I would want to cozy back into bed as soon as I had arrived.
Sometimes we forget that this is our first (and hopefully last) pandemic, and that all the emotions that we feel are unique and valid. The expectation for students to be performing at top tier capacity is a high demand, especially when we are not provided with the same quality of education and support as we would be during a regular, in-person school year. Students around the world are emotionally and mentally drained, exhausted, overworked, and unmotivated (just to name a few!).
The New York Times described this “blah” type emotion as languishing, which they defined as “the void between depression and flourishing… a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.” As soon as I read that, I felt a sense of relief for 2 reasons. I felt initial relief because I was finally given an accurate name for this emotion that I was constantly feeling (this satisfaction was equivalent to finally reaching that spot that has been itchy for way too long). From a scientific perspective, the act of naming allows us to transition from emotion to action since it “draws you out of the amygdala and into the prefrontal cortex (the decision-making part of your brain” (BetterUp). The most important sense of relief, however, came from the fact that I was not the only person feeling this way! An article in Medium went on to share that languishing was the “dominant collective emotion for 2021.” The article went on to share a few tips on how you can lift yourself out of this emotion, starting with “letting outside forces energize you”. I began joining my grandparents on their daily walks, keeping a safe distance for others, and allowing myself to be immersed in the suburbs - taking in my surroundings, watching interactions between families, and observing the animals in the area, I could feel myself becoming a part of the community rather than dwelling in my loneliness. Another tip was to create and follow a routine in order to feel more in control; oftentimes I noticed days turned into weeks and I felt as though time was just passing me by. Once I began scheduling out my day (forcing myself to go to bed and wake up at a particular time), I noticed that the days had more meaning - they weren’t all a blur and the monotony of quarantine seemed to slip away. To further fill my time, I began picking up hobbies that I would’ve never had the time for pre-COVID, allowing me to find joy in new activities! As someone who could barely draw a stick figure, I was determined to use this free time to practice art - I began sketching, painting, and even embroidering! Spending my time practicing more meaningful activities gave me purpose and, to some degree, pride over the fact that I utilized this free time rather than letting it pass me by.
References
There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing. (2021). Retrieved 26 May 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html 4 Ways To Lift The Languish. (2021). Retrieved 7 June 2021, from https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/4-ways-to-lift-the-languish-f719b4c82974 Prendergast, C. (2021). Still Languishing? Here’s How To Overcome It. Retrieved 7 June 2021, from https://www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/article/languishing
Seerat
On March 12, 2020 - a decision was taken and I got ‘the’ email. I hunkered down and masked up. Scrambling to pack, I bought myself a one-way ticket home. You see, 48 hours is all the time I got to say my goodbyes, remove the pictures on my dorm walls, and wrap up my freshman year into neatly labelled cardboard boxes. My college was going online for the semester, and I had to rush home before my home country shut down its borders.
17 hours, two flights and an excruciating long car ride later I was ‘home’- or so I thought. A huge part of me was grateful to be back with my family, whom I hadn’t seen in a while. The idea of being able to enjoy a simple home-cooked Indian meal, procrastinate on doing my laundry and being able to rely on others to take care of me- even if temporarily- seemed like an attractive proposition. Back then, I had vastly underestimated the ways in which college had changed me, and the many friends I had accepted as my new family in my ‘home away from home’.
At the time of my sudden return, my family was in the process of moving into a new house. For someone who had just spent hours packing up a cozy dorm room, I wasn’t ready to go through cardboard boxes and brown tape all over again. All I really wanted was to be back to a place I was already familiar with. Familiarity- or the mere illusion of it- systems functioning as we expect them to, people talking in tongues we understand, or the simple association with a distinct physical space is often the way I thought of ‘home’. The pandemic shifted my life, and the lives of those around me, into the realm of uncertainty.
A day after my return to India, I moved into a new house- one which wasn’t quite a ‘home’ yet. Within a week, my jet lag wore off as did my self-imposed quarantine, India went under lockdown and I went back to pursuing my college education, now virtually.
A 13-hour time difference complicated my relationship with sleep.There were days when I would miss a class or an important quiz simply because the caffeine in my body wasn’t nearly enough to keep me up through the night. Much to my dismay, I would accidentally fall asleep on the couch, on my study table or even on the most uncomfortable of chairs. Pulling all-nighters meant that I could no longer eat meals with my family, or save up the energy to socialize with my local friends on the much-awaited weekends. I cancelled plans and cooped up inside. ‘Home’ became a place of confinement for me.
As an only child, I have always been accustomed to, rather savored my moments of solitude, and yet here I was feeling completely isolated. I read an article which states that cabin fever is a series of negative emotions and distressing sensations people may face if they’re isolated or feeling cut off from the world. After months of brooding and sulking, I tried making peace with this new ‘normal’ in efforts to cope with the cabin fever that I’d been experiencing.
Studies show that periods of disruption, like moving to a new town or getting divorced — or living through a pandemic — can also be opportunities for breaking bad habits and starting healthy new ones. And so, I set out on a mission to find healthy distractions and habits that work for me. I’ve since been on a reading rampage, which I've thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve realized that I’m better at eating pizza than baking it, even though I can whip up a mean banana-bread on occasion. Assigning names to feelings through a regular practice of journaling is something that has proved to be a habit, which I wish to carry in my life- pandemic or not. I also underestimated how much my physical and mental health are entwined. What started as light daily workouts morphed into full time commitment with a personal trainer and a mini-gym at home. This personal saga is my way of telling you that for me, finding meaningful ways to engage my brain was a coping strategy which helped alleviate the irritability and distress that Cabin Fever brings.
Additionally, I’ve found that setting smaller realistic goals can help add meaning to your days, especially when there’s very little separating your work and home lives. Having an outline helps you keep track of the trajectory of your hours and gives you mini “goals'' to hit throughout the day. Fixing bedtime, meal time, work-out time and even downtime can help add structure to your days.
The mani-pedi place is shut, as is the coffee place, the mall, the gym and the restaurant you frequent often. And, if you're unfortunate enough to be an F1 visa bearing International Student like me, you’re likely stranded at ‘home’ with most of your college friends in different time zones. Being asked to maintain a social life, under such scenarios can seem far-fetched, but it is helpful. If there’s anything that this pandemic has taught me, it is to find creative ways to do things. Replacing face-to face contact with zoom calls, hugs and handshakes with elbow taps, we’ve surely found out-of-the-box ways to be social, whilst being safe. I know for a fact that meticulously coordinated calls were the silver lining to an otherwise stressful time in my life. Yes, I was struggling, but connecting with others made me realize that I wasn’t alone in my struggles.
I’ve lived in a few different physical spaces, not all of which could uphold the weight of the succinct four-letter word ‘Home’, largely because I was looking in the wrong places. ‘Home’ for me is no longer about bricks and mortar or a specific part of a map, rather it is about being comfortable in my own skin. It is also about the feelings I associate my loved ones with, wherever in the world they may be. In the past one year, I’ve been isolated, but I’ve emerged with more emotional strength, better banana-bread making skills and a newfound connection with, and gratitude towards the people in my life. In a crass and rather cheesy way, I have discovered that the maxim, “I am my own home” is relevant in my life (now). And for this, and each of covid’s twisted lessons, I’m grateful.
As California opens up and India tackles the virus on a war footing- I take solace in the thought, “If Winter comes [again], can Spring be far behind”?
References
The Healthline Editorial Team. (2020, April 2). How to Deal With Cabin Fever. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/cabin-fever.
Parker-Pope, T. (2021, June 1). Four Lessons From Your Anxious Brain. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/well/mind/anxiety-brain.html
Ways to Feel Less Lonely During the Coronavirus. (2020, March 27). Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-cope-with-loneliness-during-coronavirus-4799661
