Covid five years on: there is no "other side"

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.

During covid I started a coronavirus diary. We all called it coronavirus back when it was new. I’ve been re-reading it. I’d forgotten Trump was in power in the US (and telling people to drink bleach). I hadn’t forgotten how useless Boris Johnson was. 

I remember the optimism about how nice we would all be to each other after the pandemic. I remember that it didn’t last long. In hindsight, I realise that it was during lockdown that the libertarian right first started getting loud (although you could probably trace it back to the 2016 Brexit vote).

I remember that good things came out of the situation, like blue skies without contrails or David Tennant and Michael Sheen’s brilliant lockdown comedy Staged. But they were temporary things. And they didn't meant it was a good time. It was a frightening time, because of the deaths. It was a frustrating time, because of the incompetence.

It feels like a lifetime ago, before I got old.

It feels as though it still affects everything. 

Nothing “bad” happened to me. Friends of friends died, but no-one close to me. I lost work, but I was eligible for the government’s self-employed grant. I survived.

But being in survival mode for so long isn’t good for anyone. I got used to being a hermit, and I still haven’t got used to not being and I don’t think I can unlearn being cautious. I feel diminished by the experience. Nothing good came out of it. I’m not even sure that there were any lessons learnt by the people who need to learn them.

We need to remember. All of that.