I can’t say I love the winter, but I don’t particularly hate it either. Usually, it’s just a period of time to make it through, head down, big jumpers on until the light starts to fight its way back to longer days. One thing I usually love about winter is walking in the cold, damp weather… because hardly anyone else is. The few people you might pass smile and say hello, you exchange a look that for a few fleeting seconds, makes you feel like you’re part of a select club, A Proper Walker. A silly, small sense of belonging and connection.
During the weirdly warm spring of the last lockdown, it seemed like everyone was out walking and there was very much a sense of shared experience. Smiles were easy, hellos were said. Now though, everyone is tired. The walkers have dropped off again and the smiles of the people passing are tight, strained. Hellos are without warmth and perhaps even tinged with suspicion, ‘why are you here’ or maybe, ‘are you sick.’
While I was never a fan of the positive veneer of the first lockdown (it seemed primarily to be the very rich telling us how to do a pandemic from their mansions), it seems now to have worn away to reveal a rotten stub. Everything appears to have taken on a competitive edge. I’ve found myself being more careful too. When I’ve been asked about how I’m getting on or how work is, I try to caveat any response by acknowledging my privilege, ‘I’m not complaining, honestly!’ because things have definitely been harder for some than others, and it’s important to recognise that, but I think it’s also important to know that each of us might be having experiences that are hard on us in different ways, and surely it’s okay to talk about that too?
I remember months ago some people discussing how selfish some were for talking about missing their extended family and friends because they didn’t live alone and that would be worse. I wonder where this sort of empathy-less one-upmanship ends. ‘You lost your job? Well, I lost my job and I got paid more than you did, so really I’ve lost more.’ ‘You know someone who died? Sorry but I know TWO people who died so you aren’t entitled to talk about it.’ It would be ridiculous. Can’t all of those things be awful and deserve care and empathy? I know we’re exhausted but can’t we extend a little consideration beyond that in reserve for only the most horrific of experiences?
I read a piece the other day that I wish I could find again and link you to it, because it discussed about how – as an example – teenagers had been vilified for missing nights out and their mates and how they weren’t even allowed to vent about that. I have to admit I’ve been guilty of the same sort of thing, albeit only as a thought crime. Moments of irritation when you see someone complaining about something that seems trivial when compared to your own experience. But why aren’t they entitled to that? And where do we draw the line?
We can often make assumptions about people’s lives, and I think in particular that’s more common because of social media. We have these carefully curated windows into someone else’s world and think that we know them, but we never really know what’s going on with someone in their lives, or what small things help to ease that and make things bearable.
One thing the pandemic has really exposed (though it was always there) is the horrific inequality and austerity that exists in our society. There is no denying how absolutely terrible things are for some people and we must find ways to fix that, together (ideally by not voting in the utter wankers that perpetuate it). But I’m not convinced that we get any closer to those goals by reducing what we consider lesser experiences or feelings to a game of bitter competitiveness.
I’m lucky in that my small circle of friends and family, and my extended ‘online’ friends sit happily away from either end of the extremes of toxic-positivity-knitting-circle and excessive-angry-identity-politics. They are kind and empathetic, share their experiences and opinions without using them to shut down conversations. They’re happy to let you have a moan and say, ‘that sucks’ without judgement or competition. We’re all exhausted and strained in a time that’s unlike anything we’ve ever known before. Tempers are short and patience is in limited supply, and restrictions and lockdowns have amplified these feelings. They’ve taken them and shaped them into something else, and at times possibly even held up a mirror to us and maybe we don’t like what we see.
This last year has felt like some long, strange hibernation, waiting to wake back up and once again do the small, important things that help grease life’s wheels. Is staying alive and healthy more important than eating out? Of course! Is it okay to miss grabbing some lunch in a cheap Italian restaurant and spending a lazy afternoon wandering around museums? Yes. The most important thing to me is that the people I love stay safe, but do I miss ‘trivial’ stuff? God yes. Because it isn’t trivial at all, it’s life. I miss bookshops and museums, I miss eating out in cosy places, I miss weekly card games with my friends, I miss my aunt and uncle bringing my gran over for a visit… and travel and adventures. I miss all of these things and more. And that’s okay.
I’d like to think if we make a little room for those things outside of our own experiences it might make this awful time just a bit more tolerable.
