Why I Miss Lockdown

Friday night in Soho. First time in a while. By a long shot. Lockdown is slowly being lifted and each time we creep closer to the way things were a part of me dies inside. This night is the decisive occasion. My friend and I are out on the town, ‘tearing it up’ as friends do. He’s good company, but the rest of the world not so much.

Loud drunks, beggars, bitchy gays and fake tan girls in heels, all working together in a cocktail of annoyance that leaves me feeling more than a little misanthropic.

I wish I didn’t feel this way. But I do. Whilst most of us were fed up and stressed by the lockdown, not being able to do the things we wanted to do, I can’t help but feel that a number of us benefited from it.

Speaking to my tutors on Teams at term time, they all lamented what things had come to. Such a shame that we’re not as free as we normally are, and more so that we’re not in a physical classroom. They were acting as if the sky was falling in, whilst people like me were flourishing.

Before lockdown, I was out of touch with who I am and what I want from life. I drank all the time, spent too much money, lived in a shitty (albeit expensive) house share, and felt very angry with the world.

When lockdown came, I had to rethink my priorities. I moved in with my father and stepmother. It took a while to adjust, but in the end things worked out fine. I got sober, I figured out what I want to do with my life and established a general sense of routine and purpose that had, up till then, been sorely lacking.

This is not to say I couldn’t have turned my life around without lockdown, but it would have been harder. I am a very distractible person. And I have it in me to be impulsive. Being with family, connecting with myself and others on a more meaningful level, and not being free to go out on the town all the time, has been a blessing.

So sitting there on a chilly Friday night (we couldn’t dine indoors yet), eating overpriced pizza and being surrounded by a bunch of seemingly vacuous hedonists just isn’t my idea of fun anymore.

I think people should be free to do what they want, so long as there is no harm done, but when it comes to participating in an overstimulating world…well, unless I’m feeling impervious to irritations and willing to tolerate the mayhem, you can count me out.