How Did the Pandemic Change Your Life?
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I saw an interesting thing floating around social media the other day: a reminder that five years ago, this week was the last normal week for a lot of Americans, as government shut downs started happening in mid March. Let's discuss — what was your life like, five years ago? How did it change during 2020, and how has it changed since?
Probably the best thing we published during that time period was written by a commenter, who graciously allowed us to republish it as a post — The Ideal COVID-19 Quarantine Woman. From the opening paragraph:
She lives alone. Unless she has children. Then they live with her. But she doesn’t take them out. They magically entertain themselves so she can go out for essential trips. No more than once every two weeks. For essential groceries. She doesn’t need toilet paper. She stocked up months ago well before there was a run on toilet paper or anyone could accuse her of hoarding. But her supply is safe since she installed a bidet last week. She has a fully stocked basement of anything she or her family may need for six months.
Wow — that really takes me back. In some ways the pandemic didn't change my life too much, considering I've been working from home for quite a while now, but having the kids home, without childcare (and virtual school, gah) was… really something. (I should note that my family was very fortunate to not have anyone be too affected by COVID-19.) I don't think we can know yet how much the kids' lives have been affected by those odd years.
In other ways the pandemic changed my life immensely — for someone who thinks about workwear as often as I do, work clothes have changed greatly, and I feel like a lot of attitudes around careers have changed immensely. I also feel like, in general, people trust each other less, particularly around collective health issues like vaccinations.
With the kids back in school we've been as back to normal as it gets these days, but I do have other family members who are still very COVID-cautious — wearing masks in public and avoiding indoor dining. (I still try to encourage my nuclear family to wear a mask while flying, at least until the airplane's air filtration system kicks in at 30,000 feet — but that is increasingly less popular with the kids.) We've always been cautious about dining indoors after the Thanksgiving/Christmas time period, too, but this year we celebrated my January birthday at a regular restaurant.
Stock photo via Stencil.
So many ways! I am definitely just working to live instead of living to work right now. I still prefer to pick up groceries curbside or have them delivered. I bake bread and garden now.
Fortunately no one in my family or friends has ever gotten seriously ill from Covid. The WFH era was great for me and my spouse – both in WFH jobs in unaffected industries, and we were in a big enough home with separate floors for our home desks, and used the extra time no longer commuting to sleep later and relax together. We spent extra time with family that’s a flight away (post vax) since we could easily work full days from there.
Effects afterward? I was nervous about using all my PTO and traveling because it felt like I’d be seen as uncommitted. Not anymore!
My whole career changed! I worked for a company for almost a decade that was owned by another that runs a gigantic trade show business. I was part of cuts made following the pandemic. I then grabbed a job that I absolutely hated because I was glad just to have a remote job at the time. I learned so many news skills though. And a year later, I got recruited to move into a dream job and am happier than ever. Now, I don’t take anything about employment for granted. It taught me you can be an outstanding performer and wind up jobless the next day. I also learned that I’m capable of a lot more professionally than I realized.
I also had a huge order for contact lenses and new eyeglasses that got caught up in the lockdowns so ended up wearing super, super ugly glasses for a few weeks. So now I don’t wait to the last minute to order more contacts anymore and always have a decent set of eyeglasses around. It was weird to need something and have the business just completely closed.
+1 to trying to have as long a runway as I find reasonable on everything I need. Medicine, contacts, cleaning products, food (lots of nonperishables, and I try to have enough perishables I don’t totally run out before a grocery run).
I also try to book health-related appointments on the early end so everything is taken care of before it becomes urgent and there’s plenty of room in case something needs to be pushed out.
Spring and summer 2020 was brutal, we had no daycare and a 2 year old. Fall 2020 and winter 2021 was somehow maybe even worse? Daycare resumed but I was really struggling mentally with the burnout from 6 months of no childcare and we were still so isolated from friends and family. I ended up having to take a short leave of absence from work in February 2021 because I was so burned out. Things started gradually getting better post-vax when we resumed socializing with my parents and dining outdoors, but didn’t feel fully normal until 2022 when we fully got back to things like international travel and indoor dining and kid activities and birthday parties. Since then life has been very good and has felt pretty much normal in every way except I still WFH full time, which is a huge benefit with a school age kid and a college professor husband who can work from anywhere in the summers. Both this summer and last we’ve spent significant amounts of time at a family vacation home in a beautiful part of the country and my husband and I have worked remotely while our kid attends day camp there.
Also lucky that no one in my family had severe Covid; my husband, myself, in-laws and I all had very mild cases post-vax, my parents and kid have still never had confirmed cases although we’re pretty confident kiddo had it asymptomatically or with extremely mild symptoms and we just didn’t test. My parents are pretty locked down and still wear masks and don’t do indoor dining so I think there’s some chance they actually haven’t had it.
It’s pretty challenging for me to answer this question because there was so much change in the last five years that would probably have happened for me anyways – I went from associate in a law firm to a shareholder and practice group chair, my kids went from daycare to elementary school, we moved to a bigger house and a more permanent “adult” neighborhood in a good school district. So although life is nothing like it was in 2020, I’m struggling to think of anything that COVID itself has caused. I think the only thing I can think of is that I do all of my workouts at home now. I started using Sweat app in 2020 and never went back to in person workouts. I save a lot of time and a lot of money with this.
I had as bad a case of Covid as I would care to have while home alone in late 2020. It was scary bad for about three of the days but I did not want to go to the pokey rural hospital available to me. During the height of the pandemic a full on covid denying MAGA coworker went to a party and came back and gave it to my entire office. This was despite the fact that as an immunocompromised person I allowed no one in my private office, kept the door closed, and wore a mask and distanced when I had to be out in the rest of the office. Despite this I had far the worst case in the office.
How did it change my life:
Even though we were in office for the whole pandemic (essential services) I took as great of precautions as I possibly could. I still greatly resent this coworker although I am careful not to show it and essentially have to mask my still emotional response to her when around her. Despite working in a public facing role, I never became sick with COVID again. At least not yet! So I think but for Miss MAGA, I would not have gotten sick during the pandemic.
I never had sinus issues before. I now have sinus problems every day, often at a debilitating level that requires medication and ice packs. I never got fully over the fatigue. I never fully got my sense of taste and smell back. I eat now mainly for texture not taste. I got intense hip pain at the height of my illness. It continues on and has worsened as to frequency and intensity. It keeps me awake most nights. I have seen medical professionals about it. They say it’s inflammation and it’s not the first time they’ve seen that resulting from COVID. Steroid shots only help a little bit and only for a couple of weeks, if that.
On the bright side: most of my hair that fell out grew back, and the weird intense foot itching that started during Covid and continued on has mostly resolved as of this year.
I am so resentful of her and I don’t enjoy feeling that way about someone. One way or another, I live with COVID stuff on pretty much a daily basis and there’s several ways that’s hard for me.
That sounds awful. Sending you internet hugs (if you want them).
Thank you
Heh. Life is still changed with an immune compromised family member at home with terminal illness. Still WFH while the rest of my office is back 2-3 days per week, still masking most of the time. Haven’t taken a trip since 2020 except for two funerals, and haven’t flown. Even with all of these precautions, I got Covid twice since it started. Not sure when I’ll feel like life is back to normal for me, if ever.
There are lots of families like mine. You just don’t hear us talking about it with you.
As someone whose work relates to disabled people and cared for an immunocompromised person during the pandemic, thank you for sharing. I tell people that I have moved around so much that I don’t have a built-in support system to care for me if I get very sick, on top of being single with no children. I also explain that people that many people are outside of the public eye to avoid covid, so what folks see in front of them is insufficient information to gauge the situation, just like we cannot see viruses with the naked eye. I mask in public indoors, travel with a portable air filter, and have been gutted by the idea that outdoor masking could also be important to avoid the long-term effects of our local fires in Southern California.
My husband’s brother died of COVID in October 2020. He had retired just months before and his spouse was planning to retire shortly. She gets by, but her plans for the future were shattered and she can’t quite wrap her mind around that.
After my BIL’s death, we took every precaution we could, because my husband, like his brother, has an underlying health condition. At the time, our son was a junior in high school. He was an honors student taking AP courses and was a student body officer. Where we live, in-person school was required and the school district operated under a “test to play” policy where he had to COVID test every single day to be able to attend school, which was required for student body officers.
One day, pre-vax, he came home from school and collapsed on the kitchen floor in tears, saying that every day he worried about coming home with a COVID infection and killing his father by passing it along and our family would be like his uncle’s family. It was the start of some pretty rough mental health years for our son. He graduated in 2021 with honors, but his mental health deteriorated further as he entered college.
In 2025, he lives at home, delivering pizza part time. He thinks about going to college, but can’t quite jump in. We are lucky to have insurance and he has received good health care and is on medication that seems to help. I keep waiting for COVID to end for him.
I was just talking about this with my significant other this morning! As a general practice attorney/shareholder in a small rural law firm, I can draw a clear line between people’s patience and ability to listen pre-COVID, and the lack thereof post-COVID. (But that may be more attributable to use of electronics/social media than the pandemic?)
Prior to COVID, I had tremendous pride in our small town, located in a red county in between two blue cities. (We live here due to my husband’s family business.) Not being from here originally, I felt like we had created a positive space for our family in which we were able to enjoy life and give back to our community. I appreciated the benefits a small town had to offer, first among those being the idea that “neighbors take care of each other.”
Sadly, that was blown to pieces during COVID. Vocal anti-maskers and groups (quietly or loudly) flouting the social distancing rules made life feel dangerous and solitary for months on end. Elected officials spouted nonsense, including our sheriff and school board president. I realized just how little stock our community put in science and peer-reviewed medicine.
The immediate anxiety eased after the kids were able to get vaccinated in November 2021. We’ve had multiple bouts of COVID since, luckily none of them particularly serious for ourselves or our family members. But, the grief at realizing that my neighbors did not care enough to protect themselves or others, has lingered.
I’m no longer actively angry or resentful on a daily basis, but I don’t think I will ever have the same pride in my small town again.