As I said in my previous post, I kept a “coronavirus diary” during the early months of the pandemic. I’ve always kept a diary but I wrote this alongside my normal everyday one. Partly for posterity and partly because it felt important.
I also said that we need to remember. And what I have just read in my five-year-old diary has shocked me.
You can see how gradually life became less and less normal. And then suddenly, very not-normal at all.
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A social distancing T shirt sold during covid in aid of Age UK, modelled by a 94-year-old woman. |
Suddenly everyone is reminding me that covid was five years ago.
Well, covid started (officially) five years ago. It never finished. All that talk about “see you on the other side” turned out to be optimistic. There is no other side. There’s just now, when I’m usually the only person on the bus wearing a face mask. And when I have friends who still have to self isolate and have invited me to a Facebook group called “Still hardcore coviding”.
So, no, there is no "after covid". But there is a "before covid", and it feels like another world. What happened five years ago divides my life, and my memories. Once, we’d measure out our lives in holidays or jobs. Now, I just finding myself saying "that was before covid".
As for “during covid”, I’m revisiting it now.
