Emily Howlett: Covid time and how it differs from other times

I’ve found myself talking about ‘covid time’ a lot recently. Not just to my houseplants and George, my long-suffering Hearing Dog, but to actual, real-life people. Which in itself is a novelty, after months of isolation and peering into Zoom windows to catch a glimpse of human contact.

I find Covid Time tricky to define. Unlike Hammer Time, it isn’t fun, although I guess it could be set to music (or, more likely, set to an exercise commentary by Joe Wicks).

It also isn’t actually the time you might naturally associate most with coronavirus; that first year of lockdown and isolation. No, I’m talking about what came after, when things started to open up again, and we began making steps back to ‘normal’; the time we are in now.

Covid Time is essentially a mixed-up bowl of all the other Times; teatime, bedtime, story-time, school time, yoga time, stressed-as-hell-about-the-state-of-the-house-time, stressed-as-hell-about-the-state-of-the-world-time, etc.

Except, as part of Covid Time, all of the other times make less sense than they did before.

Take work, for example. Before Covid Time, I could easily work an 8-10 hour day and still cook dinner, sort out all the family related things, set everything ready for the morning and then do it all again the next day. Days off stretched long and luxurious, pottering around the house and garden, or having a day out with the family. Maybe even a barbeque with friends.

But in Covid Time, my work is split between online and in-person. If I have to do a 4 hour day on Zoom, despite having another 20 hours of the day left, my brain doesn’t function properly. I’m drained, yes, by the effort of watching what is essentially a digital interpreter for 4 hours, but I’m also still there. It’s hard to explain, but I find it much more difficult to disconnect from work these days; my brain still seems to hum with it, but not in any useful way. Just as a distraction from whatever else I should be doing.

Socialising is also affected by Covid Time. Partly because Covid Time doesn’t follow the usual chorological flow, but sometimes goes super fast and sometimes drags along unbearably. It’s difficult to spend an hour in a group of people, because who is used to groups of people anymore? But it’s also difficult to say enough, to spend enough time, to DO enough and be present in your friends’ lives, when you’ve missed so much.

Going to the shops has changed in Covid Time. I feel less able, now that wearing a mask is optional, to ask people to remove theirs in order for me to lipread. I’m not sure why. I feel like more of an inconvenience to people since we’re trying to ‘get back to normal’ than I did when we were in the throes of lockdown.

Covid Time has made me feel simultaneously exhausted and invigorated. I have so much I need to do! I have no energy or inclination to do any of it… But I am really excited to do it all! But there’s a fog over my thinking that means I’m not sharp, I’m not effective, I’m not… Oh, but I can finally do the things again! Oh, but… And so it goes on.

It is well documented that in times of extreme stress, or trauma, the human brain can do all kinds of weird and wonderful things. There is often a sense of time changing during these periods; slowing down, or speeding up, or somehow becoming dream-like and less real. And that seems to fit, on some level, with my experience of this ‘Covid Time’. It’s not quite real; it’s different to before and it’s a bit confusing.

I would not compare the experience of living through the coronavirus lockdowns to the mental destruction of war or domestic abuse, for example, but there is something damaging, or at least confusing, that comes from such a sudden and sustained change to our sense of ‘normal’.

Essentially, our brain will always try to protect us, even if it sometimes gets it a bit wrong (such as in excessive anxiety, or PTSD responses). Although I am surprised and, if I am honest, sometimes disturbed by the way my brain seems to have created Covid Time, I can also appreciate a sense of focus.

I think my brain is simply refusing to let me slip back to how I was, until I am actually ready for it. I think I might be changed in ways I haven’t yet realised. I wonder if I’m being held together by my mind, or brain, or soul, or perhaps all of them, depending on what you believe, while the internal dust settles. And in the meantime, things on the outside are a little fuzzy around the edges.

I’m going to try and embrace Covid Time as a period of recovery. Something is off; my life map has been shaken and repositioned and it doesn’t have the same landmarks. I think I can allow myself a little bit of fuzzy.

There’s important work to be done rebuilding the world. But there’s also important work to be done rebuilding ourselves.