The pressure to see EVERYONE and do EVERYTHING is so intense. There’s family to visit. Friend groups to meet up with. New restaurants and bars to head to.
Where once our Saturdays and Sundays consisted of long walks with our bubble buddy, partner or family (the highlight being a trip to Coles to pick up fancy cheeses), we now spend our weekends flitting from house to house, pub to pub, park to house to
pub back to a house.
It’s not even a pressure that comes at us from external forces – we are pressuring ourselves. The FOMO is at an all-time high, so we battle between wanting to do it all, and wanting to retreat back to our safe little home with our comforting Netflix
and satisfying 8pm bedtime.
I’m socially anxious, but I’m also just generally anxious. Yes, being double-vaxxed puts me in the best position possible to both avoid COVID, and avoid severe illness should I catch COVID. But when you’ve been hiding from a virus for so long it’s
hard to just accept that, hey, now we’ve just gotta let it circulate in the community.
It’s hard to reckon with the fact that we’ll all probably catch COVID at some point, and it’s even harder to reckon with the idea of a loved one who is vulnerable catching it.
Our world went from feeling safe to feeling dangerous, and it makes sense that it’s going to take some adjustment as we get used to that.
On that note, listen to The Undone, a Mamamia podcast where Lucy and Emily discuss dating stories and talking about the biggest issue in their world, because… nothing is simple in your 20s. post continues after podcast.
I love that I’m seeing my friends and family again, but I am starting to think I should take it easy. Am I my own worst enemy, and do I need to put myself under my own personal post-lockdown set of rules? Maybe it’s a maximum of two social events
per week, building up to three by mid-November. Maybe it’s limiting pub visits to weeknights so I don’t get stressed out by crowds. I’m still working on it, but clearly the 180 hasn’t been great for my mental health – and that’s okay.
I think, at the end of the day, that’s the most important factor. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and be experiencing social anxiety for the first time. It’s okay if you need to emerge from this weird hibernation slowly. It doesn’t matter if that girl on
your Instagram seems to have bought the entire new season of Alice McCall and is making her way through those best new restaurants lists in record time.
She has her way of experiencing this new …….
