When the COVID-19 pandemic was just a virus that seemed somehow related to a well-known Mexican beer, with only a few cases (pun intended) reported here and there, we had no idea that it was going to change our lives so much and still be around more than two years later.
As lockdowns and restrictions were imposed on us, we gradually adapted our lifestyles in order to mitigate the impacts of such measures.
There were immediate effects that we all saw and felt, such as: not being able to go to a restaurant, practice our favourite sport, go shopping for non-essential things, or visit with friends.
There are other things, though, that emerged later on, as lockdowns and restrictions dragged on. Here is a non-exhaustive list of things I realized during the pandemic:
1. Losing track of time
The first thing that I noticed was that the date of the first government lockdown became a marker in my life’s timeline: there are things that happened before that date, and there are things that happened after. I have very few such markers in my life and that is one of them.
Then, it got more complicated. It seemed that time stopped when the first lockdown was announced. Whenever a colleague would ask me if I remembered when we had completed a project, I would almost never, unconsciously, take into consideration the period following the beginning of the first lockdown in my answer to the colleague. In other words, if we had completed that project in March 2018, and someone asked me about it in March 2022, I would say “about two years ago”.
My theory is that my brain has ceased computing home office workdays since the first lockdown. When I stopped going to the office, seeing colleagues, and having in-person meetings, my brain decided that this remote work didn’t count as “normal” workdays.
After all, most of us do spend most of our waking hours at work. When the work environment completely changes, we shouldn’t be surprised that side effects start popping up.
This “losing track of time” business wasn’t limited to work: it creeped its way into everything else. How long ago was our last pickleball tournament or our last visit to see my cousin Vinny? How long has it been since we’ve gone on a cruise? Invariably, the answer would be the total elapsed time since the event minus the period of time since the first lockdown.
As the pandemic is slowly getting behind us and we are going back to work, I think this problem is starting to fade away.
2. Using antiperspirant and deodorant
Don’t get me wrong: I care about my personal hygiene, and I would never want to impose foul body odour on anybody, not even my enemies.
However, I had been reading a lot about healthy habits, wellbeing, and sustainable practices when the pandemic struck.
I have to confess that at first, I wouldn’t always (read: I would extremely rarely, if ever) shower in the morning before I started my workday at home. I wasn’t trying to save the planet by using less water and electricity. Since the commute part of the morning had been eliminated, I was able to seamlessly transition from drinking coffee to reading emails and getting things done for work without having to incorporate anything else into my schedule.
That lead to using less and less antiperspirant (and quite frankly, not caring too much about it since I was confined!). When I started going back out again, I didn’t need antiperspirant anymore because my body had regulated itself and had stopped over-producing odor-causing bacteria.
Today, I never wear antiperspirant anymore even when I have very stressful days.
3. Eating garlic
On the subject of stinking, I love garlic (fresh or cooked) but I hate having bad breath. Before the pandemic, I would eat fresh garlic on a Friday or Saturday night once in a while when I knew I was staying home the next day.
During the great lockdown, I ate garlic almost on a daily basis. In fact, I even considered putting garlic in my porridge.
Nobody suffered from this and I was able to indulge on such a healthy plant. In fact, medical research shows that garlic reduces the risk of having cancer, developing cardiovascular diseases, and it is a great natural antibiotic.
4. Pollution
At first, we all saw images of sea turtles reclaiming the beaches of highly populated cities, wild animals roaming free in urban areas, and almost extinct species reappearing. Smog domes over large cities started to dissipate. Greenhouse gas emissions dropped sharply.
We all rejoiced and praised the pandemic lord. But then, the pandemic morphed into Debbie Downer and killed our collective buzz: (i) millions (billions?) of people were now using disposable masks that were ending up in the garbage (best scenario) or all over the sidewalks, parking lots, public buildings, and even some hiking trails, causing animals to choke on them; (ii) millions (billions?) of tests, vaccines and accessories were now being used and disposed of, causing huge quantities of hazardous materials being released into the wilderness; (iii) poachers started taking advantage of quiet nature reserves to kill animals and trade them for human consumption.
Now that wild animals have retreated to their normal habitats, and air pollution has gone back to the pre-pandemic era, there are still masks and medical hazardous materials littering the world.
Perhaps, things weren’t so bad before the pandemic after all.
5. Toilet paper paranoia
When we hear about a major snowstorm, a tornado or an ice storm that’s about to hit our city, we are told to stock up on non-perishable human and pet food, water, batteries and medication. Those are the only essentials you will absolutely need if you have to live off the grid for a few days to a few weeks.
However, when a pandemic strikes, I learned that you have to drop everything and run to the nearest store in order to pack your car (or preferably a rental U-Haul truck) full of toilet paper rolls because you don’t know if you’ll be able to find any tomorrow!
Forget about everything else, just grab toilet paper and stock it up all over your house, even if it means that you’re good to go for at least the next 10 years.
Did someone spread misinformation about COVID causing massive diarrhea?
6. Pursue your passion
When we didn’t have to commute to work anymore and we basically weren’t able to go anywhere, we suddenly had a lot more free time. After binge-watching TV series and movies on Netflix for weeks, some of us started wondering if we couldn’t do something more useful such as learning a language on Duolingo, starting a website, taking up painting, or growing bonsais.
You could finally do the thing that you always put off until the time was right. Well, now the time was right, and you didn’t have any excuses anymore.
Let it be known that I wrote this article at home without any antiperspirant during the afternoon rush hour, when I would normally be stuck in traffic, after having a wonderful platter of garlic beans, which reminds me that I need to buy more toilet paper (or did I stock up on toilet paper two months ago?!?).
Nice! 😎