Even though I’m not someone who goes out every single day or spends a ton of time surrounded by others, I’m already feeling extra isolated and lonely right now. The few regular things that I do that are social (such as my workouts) are gone from my schedule. And the events that were coming up that I was excited about were canceled. My calendar is empty with the exception of work right now. And even though I can chat with my co-workers while I work, it’s still a solo thing.
I know that being isolated is the best thing for my health and the health of others. I might be at a slightly higher risk of getting sick, but I’m still low risk. But I have many people in my life who are very high risk and it’s not worth it for me to potentially pass something to them. So I’m staying away from people and I know it is for the best. I have no clue how long we will have to do this, but I don’t see it ending in the next week or two like some others were thinking. I hope it’s not more than a few months, but I know I have to work on not feeling more isolated already. It hasn’t even been a full week and I’m already feeling it and notice changes in my mental health.
But on Wednesday, I did get a nice dose of some socializing. In the morning, one of my friends came over because she needed to borrow an iPhone cable. It turned out I had the wrong cable, but it did allow us time to talk. She stayed in her car and I was by my front door, so we were easily more than 6 feet apart (what the current recommendation is for keeping distance from others). We were talking about a few random things and it was probably under 10 minutes, but it was the most in-person socializing I had gotten this week. It really did improve my mood and outlook and I’m so grateful I got that little boost.
And that evening, I had my first movie night in with friends. I think I’ll be doing a lot of these, but we used an extension for our web browsers so we were all watching the same thing at the same time and we had a text chat on the side so we could talk to each other. This was with one of the dating Facebook groups I’m in and we decided to watch “Always Be My Maybe” because we wanted something light and upbeat.
Even though we weren’t seeing each other or talking out loud, having something where we were seeing the same thing at the same time and could talk about it really did help make it seem like we weren’t apart. Texting randomly is good, but having some sort of community event was so much better. We have already planned to do more of these and I am planning movie nights in with several other groups I’m a part of.
And I’m also working on scheduling virtual happy hours with friends over Skype. The good thing is that it’s not as hard to schedule now as it usually is since nobody really has anything planned. The only thing we have to work around is any other virtual hangouts that people have with other friends. And it seems like everyone is doing these types of things now, so at least it seems like a normal suggestion.
Because there are so many people doing virtual events, there is a chance that my calendar can be more full than it was before. And I think I will need that because nothing replaces in-person time with a friend. But that’s not an option right now and we have to accept that. We need to find ways to not feel alone and being together online (or in-person but far enough apart) is all that we can do right now. At least I know that I’m not the only person who feels this way and that there are so many people who understand how I feel and we can help each other try to feel a bit better about this temporary situation we are all in.
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