Re-Entry

For the past 6 weeks or so, we have been told to stay inside. To stay home and only go out for a specific number of reasons. That going out is the wrong thing to do for yourself, your family and your community. But now we are being told something different.

It’s like when you were a kid and your mum told you you’re not allowed any cookies. For months she lectured you, scolded you and made it very clear these were the rules. Then all of a sudden, she says you can have 5 cookies. You know you’re allowed them, but it still just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do. This is how I feel about ‘getting back to normal’.

Of course, I want to see my friends and my family, and to be able to go out and sit down for a meal at my favourite restaurant, but what I don’t want is the stressful, pressured-filled life I had before.

In complete honesty, I don’t really want to go back to normal.

Before COVID-19 happened, I had finished up my job at a marketing agency and was looking for my next step in my career. If you have been in my position before, you know that looking for a job is time-consuming and emotionally draining. Plus, let’s not mention the awful feeling when you don’t get a job you really wanted. It is ‘Self-Appointed Pressure 101’.

And then COVID-19 happened, and all the jobs I had been looking for went away and I was forced to just sit back and relax for a little while. I could forget about my career and the pressure that came with it.

But now, with each step announced by the government, I am coming closer and closer to where I was before, and that makes me nervous.

Turns out, there is a name for this. You can take your pick from ‘Re-Entry Syndrome’, ‘Return Anxiety’ or ‘Reverse Culture Shock’ but they all mean the same thing. With the lifting of restrictions, it pairs with a sense of unease and anxiety. Celina Ribeiro from The Guardian explains some of the reasons for this anxiety:

• Fear that the virus is still out there.

• Sadness about the loss of things gained during lockdown.

• Unease about going back to the life you had before (strict schedule, alarms, stress and pressure).

But just as we got used to isolation, we will get used to normal too.

There is no doubt that isolation didn't teach us a thing or two. We learnt to take things a little slower, to make time for passions and things we really enjoyed and forgot about before, to be grateful for what we do have, and to appreciate the act of quality time with family.

So instead of going back to my old life pre-COVID-19, I am going to go forward instead, to my new normal. A normal that is filled with the things I learnt throughout isolation and the knowledge that if I can get through a global pandemic, then I can do anything.

(Let’s hope so anyway!)