Whether you like it or not: we all suffer from the pandemic skip
I was just 26 when the corona panic broke out. I was in the midst of life and, even though I still felt very young, I finally felt like I had started my journey towards adulthood. If you had told me then that I could only invite five people to my 28th birthday because it still wouldn't be over by then, I would have spontaneously collapsed. In the end, I celebrated my 29th birthday the way it was meant to be, and despite being very happy about it, I was overtaken by a nagging feeling of FOMO. After all, I was almost 30 and the last three years felt like one big void. No one could do anything about it, but I felt robbed of my young years. The years meant to figure out who you are, what you want, and to explore the world without responsibilities, I had involuntarily spent in my 40 square meter apartment.
Yet, looking back on that period, despite the world standing still, so much has changed. Friends who used to live within walking distance, I now visit once a month on the other side of the country. Suddenly, my surroundings, with whom I used to hang out every weekend pre-corona, are talking about living together, having children, getting married, and instead of buying a Dior bag, they are purchasing a new box spring with their post-corona lover. I found that madness, until I caught myself taking my savings account more seriously these days and that all the chaos of my twenties has naturally disappeared from my life.
This isn't so strange, by the way. Research shows that stressful situations can make it almost impossible to process how much time has passed. Just think back to your worst breakup ever, or the moment a loved one passed away. The chances are high that that period now feels like one big blur. The corona blur lasted almost three years and has brought with it a new question: if we skipped three years of our lives, how old are we now actually? And what should we be focusing on?
Because this is an issue that literally affects everyone in the world, researchers have come up with a name for it: the pandemic skip. It's the feeling that our body is not entirely in sync with our brain, and everyone is experiencing it. Just think of the children who have only experienced one normal year of high school but still behave like a bunch of unruly freshmen in their fourth year. Or mothers who suddenly became grandmothers and no longer felt comfortable in their pre-corona wardrobe. And for us, the poor, poor thirty-somethings, our last years in which we could move through life carefree have been snatched away from us.
Researchers indicate that this feeling of loss comes from the fact that we have barely been able to look at our surroundings for years. The lives of family and friends have unfolded without us realizing it, causing those three years to pass in the blink of an eye. Under normal circumstances, we would be intensely involved in milestones such as living together, having children, and aging. Now, almost all of us are suddenly a house, a child, and a wrinkle or twelve further along. So it's very normal that you don't know where you currently stand in life.
The only solution is to take a closer look at the lives of those around you again. Take the time to ground yourself and have confidence in yourself. Because even though this feeling is mega annoying, now is the time to take a closer look at your life and give it the meaning that makes you happy at your own pace. How you do that is up to you. We've never experienced this before, so there are exactly zero rules for it. How wonderful is that?
Source: The Cut
