In order to relieve the expectations of ourselves a little, this article does not expect anything from you.
Yesterday I failed the task of arranging a meeting with my best friend. That may be due to the run-up to Christmas. Or the fact that my calendar is currently filling up with thoughts instead of appointments: I visit friends for a weekend. Should I still do this at all? Or would you prefer to cancel? How high is the incidence there actually? Speaking of which: wouldn’t it be safer to take the car instead of the train? I’ll visit my family another weekend. Can I even see anyone before that? Or would it be wiser to only meet her as a teacher afterwards? Or outside? How high was the risk of being vaccinated and passing on the virus with this new variant, Omikron, right? And anyway, how do we actually do it this year before Christmas …
At some point these thoughts mingled into a whirring sound. I got a headache. I didn’t send my girlfriend an appointment suggestion, but just that. She replied that she was sick at the moment anyway. And with the fact that she had forgotten the name of her daycare group when she reported sick at work. When asked about ladybugs or a group of mice, only an opaque haze spread in her head. And while I was still describing this cloudiness in a paragraph full of questions, it gave me the word after I had searched at the beginning of the article: Brain fog. Brain fog.
I don’t know about you, but there’s a lot of fog in my head right now. It consists of incidences, vaccination appointments, conflicts of interest. To dos, team conferences and appointment cancellations. And while I’m still juggling between all the Is and Ts, a new Greek letter is added, which I wearily talk about with my partner at the dinner table. Yes, the pandemic is again dominating our thoughts and our everyday lives and maybe it’s not again at all, but still one. Because on this evening at this table my friend said this little sentence: You do not admit to yourself that we are still living in an extreme situation. Oomph.
Right, there was something. Almost two years ago (I hardly want to write it down), this sentence was instilled in us like a mantra by the media, superiors, politicians: This is an exceptional situation. You don’t have to function. You may have difficulty concentrating.
We expect ourselves to function normally while nothing around us is functioning normally
Today almost no one speaks: r more about giving less than 100 percent, the questions about our state of mind have disappeared and who can blame us – because we really don’t feel like talking about Corona anymore and what it is does with us. Except that it continues anyway, with what it has been doing for two years, even if we stop talking about it.
In a flash we switched from the initial solidarity in shock back to the doer mode, we work and take care and plan, after all it has to go on, after all, this is our new normal. We expect ourselves to function normally while nothing around us is functioning normally.
We don’t have to talk about how bad the world is every day, but we have to accept that this state of affairs affects the reality of our lives. If we want to or not. 19 months ago, a pandemic joined our 40-hour weeks, our care work, our social life and what we call leisure. And, unfortunately, the weight of God can be felt on every single pillar of life.
No matter how strong our endurance muscles are, a shifted social life, isolated home office and constant worrying will eventually become too difficult. Then either a pillar collapses or we become weaker and weaker in the whole framework. And more tired. And then at best reproach us for why we are no longer as productive as we used to be. Why we no longer have any new ideas, no longer make new friends, no longer discover new hobbies. Well, because we are constantly wondering whether we can even realize this.
It’s still okay not to be okay even when it’s annoying.
It’s not just that the pandemic stole our last two years and our now. It also takes a piece of our future away from us, the planning of which is also currently in the fog. Uncertainty does something with people, with some perhaps more than with others, but it cannot be discussed away.
“But I haven’t only been able to give 80 percent for two years. But I have to do more with my children again. But I have to slowly strive for the next career level. But it has to go on damn it.” I can already hear the protests of the performance society.
Perhaps we just have to learn above all not to have to do anything. Not getting higher, faster and better all the time. To realize that nothing happens if we only give 80, on some days maybe only 50 or even 20 percent.
We cannot expect the same performance under twice the load. That’s why this article doesn’t expect anything from you.