Lapses
This was written sometime in August, this moment has now passed - but it felt good to give voice to the not so pretty side of this pandemic.
There is a moment, sometimes fleeting and sometimes elongated, when a form of happiness will lap up against your consciousness. The soft velvet tones of joy that melt away worries and prove both restorative and vital. I'm speaking of bacon sandwiches, shared laughter, foreign sunsets, completed crosswords, the re-remembered song from many years ago and that backyard beer. I'm also talking about the sticky happiness of released anger, relief from suffering, the exhaustion of exercise and the bittersweet fixing of a regretted comment. These are yardsticks that we return to in order to access the rise and fall of our lives. Life is full of these emotional twitches, we store them like muscle memory in our psyches. We are eager to tumble into them and can find ourselves pursuing a tangible lead with eager disregard for more prescient matters. I speak of happiness because there has been a souring of late. Or rather, I feel for me at least there has been. The opposite of happiness, as we know already, isn't anger, rather it can be the shadows created through boredom, apathy and unfulfillment.
My decline started in late June, just when the summer heat was colouring the fields and holidays were tentatively being planned. I have spoken before of the holiday I want - the one away from the empty stairwell that my life currently sometimes feels like. The holiday I got - the delicious week long pause in Greece - gingerly clung to my souring mental health like a newly stuck plaster. It took away the sting but it hasn't cured the problem. We are falling, maybe lapsing is a better word, back into lock down. The politicians still aren't really helping us. Despite various people chorusing "we must return to normal", we have not, in fact, returned to normal. Wanting something isn't the same as getting it. And I hasten to add - yes, you should be careful of what you wish for. Unless of course what you want are the basics of everyday life - say the rhythm of a commute, job stability, access to people, safety in crowds, freedom to interact with the people you love and clarity in leadership. Like all lapses - be it chemical, romantic or emotional - the toll is steep. We have to return to the sense of being at ground zero, except this time our patience has long ago run dry.
The world has been fragmenting for a while. These fragments are often like individual islands that hold a shared value - be it right wing politics, the degradation of rights to protect privilege or liberal echo chambers. These islands float, often in oblivion to each other, for months on end. I do not want to romanticize the past, certainly not our recent past, but I can see the moments, at the start of this virus, where these island fragments tentatively lent towards each other in our need to fight the common enemy of global illness. And so it goes. The wind has changed and we have all returned to our original posts.
So what do we do when happiness sours and reality seeps back in? I can’t answer that question for the collective or for individuals but I can tell you what I am trying to do. I will continue to write, to explore and to listen to those around me. I will ponder for a little longer on happy memories - both recent and distant. I will recall, perhaps with more urgency, on the things that bring joy into my life.