Lessons From the Highs and Lows of Quarantine Life
By: Kylie Fuller
Tags: Life Lessons, Personal Development, Covid 19, Self, Life

Even in October, the sun still shines in Texas. It’s not the unrelenting sun of July and August. It’s a soft autumn sun — still warm but dimmer than its summer counterpart. Everything changes when the world shifts from summer to fall. The wind’s a little crisper, softening the lingering heat. The earth becomes quiet. I never noticed these details before. Of course, we all know the sun grows softer as winter approaches. We all know the air cools down and the earth prepares for hibernation. But while these are all things I knew, these are not things I experienced. I never stopped to feel the soft autumn sun or listen to the quick northern wind rustling the falling leaves.

Experiencing something, I have learned, is far different than knowing it exists.

Quarantine is a paradox: while I am trapped in near-solitude, I find myself with freedom of a different sort. The freedom of time, which I did not have before.

My life hasn’t changed much since we all first went into quarantine. Unfortunately, North Texas is mostly apathetic where COVID-19 is concerned. I’ve been stuck at home, associating with the same three people, for nearly seven months, avoiding the general public as much as I can. In other words, I’ve been living a life of near-solitude and lots of silence for over half a year. And in that solitude and silence, I find myself noticing things I never did before, like the soft autumn sun and the sound of the wind.

In a way, this seemingly-eternal quarantine has a much-needed wake-up call. The quiet was uncomfortable at first. I felt fidgety without something to do, someone to talk to, or somewhere to be. Without some clear end in mind, I felt that my life (and by extension, myself) was pointless. But I grew comfortable with my life being pointless. I grew comfortable with just being for the sake of being.

My favorite part of the day is my lunch break: I have a one-woman picnic in my backyard. Sometimes I listen to music. Sometimes I sit in silence. But it is the simple act of sitting outside, luxuriating in the sun, that I look forward to most. And the silence has taught me more than just the importance of silence. I’ve learned what kind of life I want to live and what really matters to me. In the past seven months, I made more time for my favorite things — novels and poetry, old films, being in nature — than I have in years. Albeit, my internal transformation has been facilitated by a few existential crises and watching The Dead Poets Society (a few times), but the breakdown is part of the process.

Quarantine is a paradox: while I am trapped in near-solitude, I find myself with freedom of a different sort. The freedom of time, which I did not have before.

And yet, I cannot say that quarantine has necessarily been good. Not only do I want to avoid speaking about a pandemic like it is some blessing in disguise. Picnic lunch or not, it’s still a pandemic and far too many have died. But I also can’t pretend there aren’t moments when I feel like the solitude is swallowing me whole. I may love the silence and the freedom of time, but even the most severe introvert needs human interaction from time to time.

Thinking about how much time I’ve lost infuriates me and depresses me and terrifies me all at the same time. I have but one life, and I fear the best parts of it are slipping through the cracks of time, never to be experienced.

Then there the days when I couldn’t care less about the solitude. I just want to be able to live. I’m in the so-called prime of my life, and I cannot go anywhere or see anything. I cannot travel and explore and make stupid mistakes that I’ll laugh about in ten years. And thinking about how much time I’ve lost infuriates me and depresses me and terrifies me all at the same time. I have but one life, and I fear the best parts of it are slipping through the cracks of time, never to be experienced.

On other days, neither the solitude nor the lost time bothers me. Instead, I grieve the fact that when “life” resumes, it will inevitably disappoint. How could it not? After so long in solitude and silence, waiting for everything to return to normalcy, how can normalcy be anything but disappointing? Because it will not be “normal”. It will be an adapted version of the life I once lived, with masks and social distancing, that cannot compare to the dreams of complete freedom that have filled my head during quarantine. Not only that, but I may have to give up my picnic lunches.

And still, there are other days where I loath myself for loving the silence and raging against the lost time. On these days, I loath myself for all these selfish feelings and desires, knowing that I am relatively lucky and people have problems infinitely worse than solitude or losing their picnic lunches.

But all the same, these selfish things run through my head, unfettered by my knowledge of my privilege.

I look back on these past seven months, and I think I can finally see why it has been so liberating but also painful. I, like the rest of society, am being given the option to shed my old self and become someone more.

Quarantine is a paradox, with its own highs and lows. And the highs are so wonderful and peaceful, I wish I could pause the moment forever. But the lows are cavernous, and I cannot imagine climbing my way back into the blissful ignorance I lived in pre-pandemic.

Because that’s really what it was: a blissful ignorance. The past seven months have shaken us out of our collective stupor, in more ways than one. I only wonder if we will try, in vain, to return to the old ways once again when this is over. If we do, we are setting ourselves up for inevitable disappointment.

I look back on these past seven months, and I think I can finally see why it has been so liberating but also painful. I, like the rest of society, am being given the option to shed my old self and become someone more. Someone who appreciates the simple things. Someone who recognizes what really matters and honors those things above all else. Someone who chooses knowledge, no matter how painful, over ignorance.

So while quarantine is a paradox, it is also perfectly consistent. Quarantine is simply exposing the ugly, dead parts of ourselves and giving us a glimpse at what we could be. And everything that has happened, the beautiful and the terrifying, is just a part of that.

So the question becomes: will we cling to that old, dead shell or will we embrace the painful process of maturation and emerge better for it?