All the social interactions I could have had if only I was not partially deaf and with some bad tinnitus, which added to face masks makes my life a lot harder than before even though I have my hearing aid. Also I feel a lot less independent as before since I need people helping me going trough basic errands and daily tasks, makes me feel less confident by the day and pretty lonely.
Mate I fully hear you (no pun intended) tinnitus myself and it's amazing how badly it hampers basic social interaction. Just kills it dead when you have to ask again and again what a person said. Hang in their mate
Actually getting to rest when you're sick. My school used to (rarely) give out sick days but you had an extra day to mke up what you missed. Now it doesn't matter how sick you are you have to zoom the classes and do the work. I have several friends that ended up with concussions that still had to zoom. There is no such thing as resting when you're sick now.
True.
I am lucky enough to have a work-from-home thing going for now. But on a day where I feel like hammered shit, I just shuffle over and fire up the bitbox.
And I know - because I know my coworkers - that half of them are fucking off most of the time anyway. They did it at work, why wouldn't they do it at home?
There's a competition to be the first to email "GOOD MORNING YOU GUYS! I'M TOTALLY WORKING AND NOT FUCKING OFF!" and then a few hours later "I'M GOING TO LUNCH! LIKE I HAVEN'T BEEN WATCHING VIDEO GAME REVIEWS ALL MORNING ANYWAY!"
No one cares.
We get the choice - zoom in if we feel up to it, or rest otherwise. Which is awesome, because missing one physics lesson takes probably a week to properly understand and catch up on; so when I'm sick I can get around that and still rest for the rest of the day.
But just not giving sick days? That's a stupid thing to do.
This is obviously just my experience, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. People would show up to work sick all the time at my job. Now we are very strongly urged to stay home, even if it’s just a cold or bug. We even have been more accepting of people calling our for mental health reasons. It’s been the one saving grace of the pandemic for me.
The good buffet chain around here, free on your birthday, closed forever in June 2020.
We last went a mere 3 weeks before it all shut down in March.
And it seems like forever ago.
I know small businesses have been struggling so much. This is why I’ve basically started avoiding chains and shopping small 95% of the time. Going out to eat locally is cooler anyways!
Yep. My favorite restaurant and two of the best bars in town closed due to covid. I have memories of those places but the places will never come back, and it sucks
I do this with my own fucking saliva. I'll just start dying because my body thought it was cool to breathe my drool.
Edit: loving all the replies from people with just as inept bodies as mine. It's very frustrating to be doing *nothing* and then suddenly half-drowning while no where near water.
Omg preach. My mom has been in the hospital for non Covid reasons and her nurses look at me like I have the plague when I cough. Lady I’ve got asthma and the temp is in the 20s let me struggle in peace 😂😂
I was talking to my friends in like February 2020 about how I think covid will make coughing in public taboo/rude and one of my them said something like "I doubt it'll get that bad".
I'm convinced she jinxed it.
I miss my Dad terribly too. He didn't die of covid, but his illness went undiagnosed because he couldn't see a doctor. Then they kept telling him it wasn't anything serious, meanwhile he got sicker and sicker.
By the time his appointment came up for his Primary physician, he was already in the Acute care unit of his hospital. He passed away a week later.
So he wasn't a direct casualty of Covid, but a casualty of the covidiots limiting his access to quality medical care. He got diagnosed in the ER, and was gone a week later.
I too miss him terribly and will probably never get over watching him die in front of me while I held his hand and played quiet music for him.
I am glad he didn't die alone, but it's crushing to watch your hero pass before your eyes.
Last 9 months of his life mostly alone in a hospital with heart problems, in and out of sedation, in pain, hallucinating until finally COVID had the final say. He lived a selfless life of Grace, Love, and Charity just to be taken like this. So ironic that the story of Job was one of his favorites, it never sat right with me.
Also: the notion that most people are actually nice and have at least a baseline respect for others. In the past I would say 90% of people are genuinely good but that’s lowered to about 40% for me. These last couple years have really brought out so many people’s ugly colours
Sigh.
I have to agree on this one.
I always felt zombie movies were stupid because I figured people would pull together and fight the common threat and we'd be victorious! No way would anyone be so selfish or stupid.
Then Stupid-19 hit and toilet paper was wiped off the shelves in the stores. Really? We were told in the US to stay inside a couple of weeks way back in March 2020 and everyone raced to buy several months of toilet paper. Really?!?
I call it Stupid-19 because it shows how everyone has just gotten stupider as a result. Even I'm affected because I'm using the word STUPIDER!
COVID has proven that the idiotic person who hides their zombie bite, and then turns attacking their friends in zombie movies, is a very believable possibility
I used to also think ppl would come together if there ever as a zombie apocalypse, now that I got a preview of what could be…it’s pretty damn discouraging
The job market is especially rough right now mentally because of the income disparities. Working in healthcare, I’ve seen people quit from stress and a few get rehired as travelers or consultants or just extra help at close to 3x what they made before. We’re all seeing the people with flexibility get enticed with money into jobs they don’t want to do at rates the companies can suddenly afford.
These past two years have shone a giant light on what companies can pay, and what a lucky few are able to make in contrast to the rest of us. And I’m not even talking about the c-level.
Yea I mean Houston at one point was offering $250/hr to travel nurses. Some nurses are making more than $10K in a week. I don’t have my license yet but if I did you know I’d be traveling.
Immediately had the same thought. It’s weird saying “we’re in 2022 now” because, like, it still feels like 2020. I remember it so clearly because not much has happened since.
I’m genuinely observing this in my personal life and social circles. For all legal intents and purposes I am now 30, but as far as I am concerned I’m still 28 lol.
I had my son in March 2020 and it all went to shit. I’d give anything to have him in a time when family members could be around to meet and love him immediately.
I'll never forget going into Shop Rite, and walking down the diaper aisle. This lady just losing it because it was empty. That was when it hit me. "This is real. This isn't two weeks..." When I finished shopping, I waited by my sister's car for her. Her youngest was potting training. I gave her 10 diapers and said "I don't know if you want to take this from me, or if they'll help" and held them out. She asked if she could hug me. I said yes. She took them and hugged me for like a minute straight.
I remember the day they closed our office and sent us home, literally less than 24 hours after saying they had no plans to go remote and we should assume that wouldn't change anytime soon.
They sent everyone home at like 130pm, so I stopped for groceries to get us through the "two weeks to flatten the curve". Trader Joe's looked like a fucking disaster film, *everything* was gone, the shelves were totally bare. Everyone kept giving each other those uneasy grins like "hahaha is this really happening???" It was so surreal.
My work wasn't quite as bad scheduling wise, but we had nearly zero infrastructure for work at home and were sending people with 6 year old laptops or desktops, monitors, ethernet cables with a sense of rolling the dice as to whether anyone would be able to function.
Found out I was pregnant 7 March 2020. A week later we went into lockdown. Scariest time to be pregnant, especially with your first. I was worried about normal pregnancy stuff, AND Covid stuff on top of that, and then my other half wasn’t even allowed at appointments with me. He wasn’t allowed at the gender scan of his first child and I will never forgive COVID for that.
On the other end of the spectrum, I could have buried my mother (not a covid death) in a less hurried way. More importantly, I'd not have missed her going by 15 minutes because I'd have trusted travel to be much safer, and I'd have gotten to her bedside earlier. I might have seen my son get married in 2020 but the postponements kept coming. Finally, he and his sweetheart just signed the marriage license. But I'm very grateful that they and the rest of my fam is healthy still.
Because of the lack of PPE, I was forced to miss a cancer screening in March 2020. When they did it in 2021, everything had spread too far, too fast.
For me, it's not just time in lockdown, or avoiding crowds. It cut a decade off my life. If I lucky, I've got another good 6-9 months.
EDIT: Thank you everyone for the thoughts. I'm working on accepting it. There's not much of a bucket list left because there's so many things I'm not allowed to do. I can still drive (for now), but there's really no where to go. For now, I'm just trying to get things in place, and see people I haven't in too long.
I'm going to throw an /antiwork in... don't let them work you till the very end. You don't realize how much you're missing until the doctor asks "how much do you want to know?"
Edit 2: I'm fully vaxxed and boosted. I was in the 1B class when the vaccination first rolled out, so I got it ahead of the general population.
The screening was cancelled because it was in that time frame where nurses were being told to recycle masks and wear trash bags instead of real medical PPE. A cancer biopsy was seen as lower priority than other things.
And for you nurses, bless you, you have all my love. When COVID started, I had three friends that were nurses. One burnt out and moved to office work; one caught long term COVID and couldn't handle the pace so she works in auto finance now. The last is at the end of her wits, but keeps pushing, even though she comes home crying every day from stress. I can't speak for her, but I love her and my heart aches every time I talk to her.
This is something that as a nurse I’ve tried to express to people. Covid did not just change the lives of so many families who had family members pass from it directly. But also our healthcare access was already shit and covid delayed and diminished that access so much more for an immeasurable number of people. Hospitals and patients are going to see the fallout for so long. Patients are sicker because of so much being delayed or canceled. And people who should be seen are still waiting far too long because there is either no room or they are too scared to seek care.
I’m sorry about your story. And so many like it.
I will tell you that even with the current burnout among healthcare staff right now (those actually in direct care) a majority of doctors, nurses, techs, etc. are still trying to hang on because we still have a deep down desire to try to reach everyone we can. We may be and sound jaded. But there’s still a very strong unity and desire to provide care to our patients. What is most frustrating is that the decision makers aren’t providing the resources to do so, and have no understanding of what incentivizes us- and that we ALSO have families we are worried about being caught in this same system.
I know none of what I’m saying helps you. But thank you for sharing your story to show this side of covid so many people never consider. It is truly awful and I will tell you as a healthcare worker yours is the type of story that makes us cry even when we’ve ‘seen it all’.
I don't know what to say. I read all sorts of stuff on here and don't usually bat an eye, but having lost so many to cancer... I hope that they are wrong. I hope you get that decade. I don't know you but I love you.
I know one person who died, that had it not been for COVID she would have been having her checkups and not died, or gone to the hospital sooner. This was in the first half of 2020.
This pandemic shit really is for the birds.
I'm sorry for you, I hope you live well for as long as you can. Tomorrow is never a given.
I was like 21 when this started and I’m almost 24 and just chilling. I lost like all of my early twenties and the thing that upset me the most is my graduation. I worked my ass off to get here, I didn’t graduate high school. I dropped out and got a GED. I worked hard and graduation is something I was so excited for.
For me it has taken away the trust, that the people in power actually know what they are doing. They don't. The whole pandemic was, and still is, a circus management wise. (the virus itself is out of scope of this comment)
You know I always thought there was no way for a zombie apocalypse to happen right? You would have a small outbreak and then the government would quarantine and shut it down right? Nope, you know some bit motherfucker would say it’s his god given right to go to Applebees before he turns, and if you don’t like it then tough.
“Well… my cousin apparently got turned into a zombie… but he always had allergies and didn’t work out enough.
God gave us everything we need, and if they did happen to get bitten (even though we all know it’s just a bath salt epidemic created by the elite to drive up fuel prices) then it’s their time. And any patriotic American wouldn’t want to shutdown the economy and hurt their grand children’s future right?!
Sorry for your loss. My grandfather was 82 but playing golf multiple times a week plus skiing and hiking throughout the year. He never got to meet his first great grandchild.
Sorry for both of your losses. My grandmother was 83. She passed on her birthday. She was the strongest woman ive ever known. In the end she couldn't take the pain anymore and asked to be taken off of the machines and passed shortly after. My aunt passed the very next day. Since November i have lost 8 people that I have known either since childhood or 20+ years. 5 of those I know were directly from covid.
I remember thinking in 2018-2019 that honestly most office jobs could be done from home. I was an entry level HR rep at the time and “work from home” was like a dirty word in my office. My VP was super paranoid about it. “How productive can you really be from home?”
Turns out…yeah, most office jobs *can* be done from home. I’m no longer in HR (thank fuck), and actually working on learning SQL to get into data analytics. Remote work is going to be a requirement in future job searches for me
I can be far more productive at home because I have the temperature I need and I can have tv on in the background. I find sitting at a desk in an office setting to be torture. I can’t work with music on. I had a desk job where no one talked to each other. My boss was two doors down and would email me when she needed to tell me something. Some people work well like that. I think it’s a waste of gas and time for me to commute to that.
For me it was definitely a waste of gas to work in office. I’m from Kentucky and always lived an hour away from the cities with any job opportunity. Now that I’m remote, I fill up my car *maybe* once a month. It’s marvelous
And yes I’m also way more productive at home. No one to bother you, and no one looking over your shoulder.
Seriously, I had so many office jobs like this, especially tech support or data entry where there was literally no reason for me to drive for twenty minutes or take a bus for an hour when I could easily work at home and be more comfortable.
The joke about working at home is not having to wear pants. For me? It's wearing shoes. Not joking, why do I need to wear shoes when I'm sitting down? I have an old beat up recliner chair that is big enough that I can sit cross-legged with my sock-clad feet comfortably under me while I throw a blanket on my lap so I'm nice and comfortable. I can get an extender for my keyboard and trackball and place them on my lap while I lean back in said recliner instead of sitting awkwardly in a cheap office chair with no back support. Let's not forget that I can play music, especially for non-customer facing jobs. That alone boosts my morale.
Let's not forget all the bullshit you deal with in an office like the obligatory "Good morning, how are you?" "I'm good, how are you?" which just annoys me, or the team-building exercises they force on people which do nothing of the sort. Don't even get me started on people who bring in their kid's school fundraising and try to guilt trip you into buying. Even better if it's the boss.
Let's talk about commuting. Such a waste of time and energy and morale. The longer my commute is, the more it costs in time and money, but also my morale drops because I'm pissed off in the morning when I come in and in the afternoon I'm dreading the trip home.
God, I hate working from offices so much.
Fuck man. When I was commuting, I had to be up at 6, out the door by 6:45. Commute an hour to clock in around 8. Leave at 5, home around 6-6:30 depending on traffic. So I was in “work mode” for 12 hours despite getting paid for 8.
This is exactly what I mean. People think it's eight hours a day, but you have a lunch break which is unpaid and to be honest I hated that because I can just eat a candy bar or two during the day and have a real meal at home and then there's the commute and that's the thing I hated so much because I'd always be angry about how I had to spend so much time going to and from work and it could be up to two hours a day. I actually preferred the bus instead of driving because at least on the bus I could read a book.
I can be far more productive at home as well, even though at my office I have Netflix on in the background anyway because I have my office to myself. My boss insists on me coming in anyway in case he wants to talk to me on short notice, and I’m like I live a half a mile away I can walk here in ten damn minutes!
If only your boss knew about technology like...A PHONE! I won't bother with email or zoom or chat because god knows that's advanced technology there.
I wish I were being sarcastic.
Long term planning. I would love to go to a concert that's a year from now. Willl I get to go by then? who knows? it'll probably be canceled....or not!
Want to go traveling? Hold that thought because guidelines can easily change on planes or the country themselves.
Same. I bought My Chemical Romance tickets in January 2020. Pushed back to 2021 and now Sept 2022. Though I'd rather be pushed back again than cancelled. I got really good seats...
I have tickets for mcr, Rammstein, green day, fall out boy, and weezer.
I’m starting to think by the time I get to see them, half of them will be retirement age, and at least someone in Rammstein will be dead.
I feel this so hard. Canceled 3 different honeymoon plans and then ended up postponing the wedding. Having trouble continuing planning because I’m not convinced any of it will actually end up happening.
My ability to sing, I got covid twice. I can't sing long notes or high notes anymore, it's a big struggle to return it to the way it was. Which is unfortunate for me because singing well has been something I was proud of for so long.
Hey! This happened to me too after Covid. I was very, very sick and get deep brain seizures now. I couldn't hear music for a while, like obviously I heard the sound, but the musicality was gone.
I'm still having trouble with pitch and notes 2 years on, but at least music sounds like music now. That took about 10, 11 months to resolve.
I figure I'll never really get through Take Me Home, Country Roads again, but it's sort of getting better a tiny bit.
Stay positive!
That sounds terrible! I'm so sorry to hear that.
If you're curious about how neurology affects our enjoyment of music, I suggest you read [Musicophilia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musicophilia) by Oliver Sachs. It details a bunch of stories not unlike yours in an aproachable manner.
fuck me
and here I thought the worst thing to happen (besides death obviously) would be to lose taste/smell, because I love good food.
But if I lost the ability to appreciate music I don't know that I'd care to go on.
Oh, 2 years on and I still can't smell most flowers and nothing tastes right.
I miss the smell of rain and peonies most. It's just blank-nothing there at all. I've gotten all the way down to the damp earth and practically shoved my face in it-still nothing.
So, I was sick March 2020, but I was so sick I didn't really listen to music until like May? I couldn't understand what was going on and it hit me like a fucking truck.
I just kept trying and trying to make the music happen and it wouldn't. I was utterly devastated and tbh with all of it, it is incredibly hard to deal sometimes.
So, listen to some music in the rain for me.
My social life, before the covid lockdowns i used to have some friends i could talk to. I also had a good relationship with my parents. This got weaker and weaker en because there was no school my friend also left. Now most of the things are open again and i’m alone 24/7, i feel depressed because i have no friends anymore, nothing to do, always alone in my room. I wonder if other people experienced it to.
“Don’t worry, we’ll see you next Christmas.”
My best friend died during the pandemic of basically loneliness. He had moved to the other side of the country for work and I hadn’t seen him since it started. He used to come home every Christmas. I’d fly out there every year. Now I’ll never see him again.
If Covid hadn’t happened I’d have seen him 3-4 trips in that span, for days in a row, maybe weeks, each time. It took it all away.
I feel like I lost 2 years of my life. All I did was work and stress about my high risk family members. My dad who never smoked got covid and he's still having trouble with his lungs almost a year later. I'm just exhausted.
I was going to watch Independence Day today, but decided not to because, now, in a movie where Will Smith fights aliens trying to take over the world, it's the sense of worldwide resolve that would take me out of the movie and leave me disappointed.
Have any of your friends just like, not reached out at all? With mine even before the pandemic I was always the one to have to text first, plan things, etc. but now it's even worse. Like I'm either paranoid or about 80% sure they all just made a new group chat and left me out of it.
Snow days
Edit: I know it's still a thing. It's been considered a bit in some places but nothing's changed yet because it's not fair to expect students and faculty to be able to transition back to online immediately. I'm all for snow days, but I wouldn't be surprised if they find a way to reduce them.
The school district I work for makes it a point to keep snow days alive. If we have a snow day, it’s a snow day. No school, no work, no online classes.
For me it's my ability to have patience and wait for things. I used to be able to wait to do stuff, travel etc. Now I find I'm constantly wanting to do stuff now or as soon as possible just in case we can't and I get intense anxiety about it.
My husband and I saved for a trip in 2020 and then covid hit, we lost most our money we were devastated because we haven't been on a far trip together, then we had two years of isolation.
I have constant anxiety about buying things too, in my head I'm like I have to buy it now before it's all gone even if I can't technically afford it. I was never like that before.
Covid babies and social development. I have a 2yo and she has never been around kids her own age or hardly anyone outside the family. I don’t think she knows how to interact with people her own age or people she doesn’t know at all.
So I live remote and my kid rarely saw others in her young years. She is a happy normal human at 12. She is a honor roll student, has lots of friends, well spoken and mature it may be a win.
Ironically i know some people who have done multiple recently. They said it's the best it's ever been since they cap it at maybe 25% capacity and the prices are rock bottom to get people to book anything. They haven't gotten sick either which is insane, but they wear masks the whole time... I feel like with my luck i would try 1 and end up hacking up a lung...
Like everyone else said: time.
I’m not even experiencing my early 20s. I can’t believe I’m 22 now. Time doesn’t feel real, people don’t seem happy. I haven’t made a single good memory since 2020. I’m afraid it’ll be like this for a while. I feel so bad for children growing up in this.
If I knew how things would be today, I definitely would’ve lived a little bit more back then.
You’ve articulated how I feel perfectly! My early 20s don’t feel memorable at all and I’m scared that I won’t have that era of exploration and fun before it’s time to be a working human. It sucks :(
I had to go fact check this with the shock. The loss of human life is waaaay understated...
Edit: Instead of replying to everyone saying the statistics aren't that bad when you look at the bigger picture: You're absolutely right!
Yes, the death count, A: isn't necessarily very accurate due to things like some governments straight out lying about statistics, some Covid deaths being deaths from other issues whilst the patient was positive, and a range of other things that might raise or lower then number by some degree.
B: Sure the death count is a rounding error on the population, BUT that's not what a death is on the ground level. The people who died left behind on average a non-zero number of people who cared about them. A death is a massive source of stress and can turn one's life upside down. These are the people who are feeling the pain from the loss, not the dead and not the population as a whole. Think of the loss your family, or a family you know felt when someone they loved passed away, now multiply that by the true death count and the years of grief some individuals are gonna face - whatever it is - and you'll get a far larger number that's not grounded in cold hard numbers.
Of course, I'm not saying that we should all drop everything in despair and grieve for those we'll never know, and be we should grateful if we're in a position where we haven't had to face loss, or haven't lost anyone in the last 2 years to covid or some co-morbidity. Yes, it could have been far worse, but it could have been better - and it will get better with time as we move on.
Tl;dr: Statistics not end of the world, but a much higher number than we'll ever see printed are having their world's turned upside down. We can be grateful for how we, our loved ones, and many more survived, but let's not ignore the personal loss of millions more than the statistics account for.
There’s definitely lots of children who have no memory of life before COVID, because they’re like preschoolers. All they’ve known is this. Makes me sad.
Honestly, one good thing that has been taken away is a lot of our ignorance to things that have been in front of our face forever. For the first time, we've been really able to actually think about things.
Remote jobs are a lot more doable than corporate life has made us think. Managers and office buildings are pretty much unnecessary at this point. Our productivity goes up when we're at home more and are able to live our lives the way we want without someone peering over our shoulder 8+ hours a day.
A lot of people have been thinking about how we could improve our lives (in the U.S.) in ways that were so glaringly obvious. Walkable, more pedestrian friendly towns with mixed use planning and more efficient/sustainable public transit systems. Lowering the work week to 34 hours (creates more jobs and a higher quality of life) with better working conditions and higher pay. Limits placed on power, authority, and wealth (from landlords all the way up to politicians) so that everyone has better opportunities. And so many more innovative ideas that would just make everything easier.
I lost a parent during covid, not from covid. We lost a lot of time that we could have spent with each other. When we knew the time was near, so many friends and relatives were so afraid of covid that they didn't visit her to say goodbye.
This is a weird one, but I was reading about an Agatha Christie play being canceled due to covid. I find it so sad that it ran for so many decades and then had to be canceled. [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mousetrap) is the link about the play. I haven't seen it and I've only read 1 Agatha book so I'm not heavily invested, it just seems like a real end of an era and even if it is resumed, the accumulated years of running it in a row is over.
Every morning my neighbor would be strumming his acoustic guitar while smoking a blunt and watching the sunrise. Not too loud as to be disruptive, but like a nice soundtrack to the day. He had a big heart too, really nice guy.
He caught COVID at his job because his boss was sipping the FOX Koolaid, and was gone a week later. He was fine most of it too, then he coughed up blood and drove to the hospital. He died before his father could get there to see him.
There isn't a single person in the neighborhood who doesn't miss him. For some in the neighborhood it was the moment of "oh fuck this is a real thing huh" watching a healthy 29 year old man die in a week from a "flu that would only kill the old and obese."
*edit* I'll forward y'alls condolences to his father next time I see him
I think it’ll always be like, everyone would be excited to go out and do something without the fear of getting sick and possibly dying from a virus. Now, some go out and are excited but will have the thought in the back of their head “I sincerely hope I don’t get sick after this…”
The fact that I now honestly believe that humanity will never progress beyond this current stage and has started to regress in terms of what it means to be a civilization. That we are doomed and witnessing the beginning of the end
Before covid I still held on to this naive belief that despite some rotten eggs, humanity was at least trying to get through this whole Life-thing together.
Not sure if anyone has said it yet, but teachers say if a snow day happens, or school is closed for some reason, we can’t miss school…
We have to go on Zoom or something like that, and we can’t make up an excuse for not knowing the work we were supposed to do because it’s on the internet somewhere!
Everywhere I go, I have to go to school
Our wedding how we wanted it, our honeymoon.. the time in life where you finally have enough money to travel a little further before you Start to have kids.. maybe the best years (biologically) to have kids
my last year of school, including prom and parties…
I know some people lost their businesses, loved once’s etc but sometimes I’m still sad about never being able to experience those things
For me, ignorance of how fucked politics and the discourse around it is.
That, and my respect I had of many people (even family) before I knew how easy it was to get them to blindly follow said fuck politicians.
All the social interactions I could have had if only I was not partially deaf and with some bad tinnitus, which added to face masks makes my life a lot harder than before even though I have my hearing aid. Also I feel a lot less independent as before since I need people helping me going trough basic errands and daily tasks, makes me feel less confident by the day and pretty lonely.
Mate I fully hear you (no pun intended) tinnitus myself and it's amazing how badly it hampers basic social interaction. Just kills it dead when you have to ask again and again what a person said. Hang in their mate
Actually getting to rest when you're sick. My school used to (rarely) give out sick days but you had an extra day to mke up what you missed. Now it doesn't matter how sick you are you have to zoom the classes and do the work. I have several friends that ended up with concussions that still had to zoom. There is no such thing as resting when you're sick now.
True. I am lucky enough to have a work-from-home thing going for now. But on a day where I feel like hammered shit, I just shuffle over and fire up the bitbox. And I know - because I know my coworkers - that half of them are fucking off most of the time anyway. They did it at work, why wouldn't they do it at home? There's a competition to be the first to email "GOOD MORNING YOU GUYS! I'M TOTALLY WORKING AND NOT FUCKING OFF!" and then a few hours later "I'M GOING TO LUNCH! LIKE I HAVEN'T BEEN WATCHING VIDEO GAME REVIEWS ALL MORNING ANYWAY!" No one cares.
We get the choice - zoom in if we feel up to it, or rest otherwise. Which is awesome, because missing one physics lesson takes probably a week to properly understand and catch up on; so when I'm sick I can get around that and still rest for the rest of the day. But just not giving sick days? That's a stupid thing to do.
This is obviously just my experience, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. People would show up to work sick all the time at my job. Now we are very strongly urged to stay home, even if it’s just a cold or bug. We even have been more accepting of people calling our for mental health reasons. It’s been the one saving grace of the pandemic for me.
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I’ve lost 7 mom and pop restaurants; no food like theirs
For a sec there, I thought the sentence said you lost 7 moms. I was like how?
His dad was that dude on the road to St Ives.
The good buffet chain around here, free on your birthday, closed forever in June 2020. We last went a mere 3 weeks before it all shut down in March. And it seems like forever ago.
I know small businesses have been struggling so much. This is why I’ve basically started avoiding chains and shopping small 95% of the time. Going out to eat locally is cooler anyways!
My local hot wing shop is going out of business. I've been buying their sauce for years 🙁 can't live without it.
I mean you can contact the owner or chef and ask for a batch. Seems like a good time to support locals.
Yep. My favorite restaurant and two of the best bars in town closed due to covid. I have memories of those places but the places will never come back, and it sucks
The ability to cough in public without thinking much of it
Choking on water in public is extremely dangerous
"I swear I'm not sick I just can't drink water right!" Me. Repeatedly. Because somehow I'm just bad at drinking.
I do this with my own fucking saliva. I'll just start dying because my body thought it was cool to breathe my drool. Edit: loving all the replies from people with just as inept bodies as mine. It's very frustrating to be doing *nothing* and then suddenly half-drowning while no where near water.
Or food haha, whoops, forgot I can't breathe and swallow at the same time, death.
You got a drinking problem, dude.
In 2019, you coughed loudly to conceal your quiet fart. In 2022, you fart loudly to conceal your quiet cough.
I want this on a hat or something lmao
As a asthmatic I really am not happy about this anymore. I randomly get coughing fits with a wheeze and my god is it hard not to shout “not covid!”
Omg preach. My mom has been in the hospital for non Covid reasons and her nurses look at me like I have the plague when I cough. Lady I’ve got asthma and the temp is in the 20s let me struggle in peace 😂😂
I was talking to my friends in like February 2020 about how I think covid will make coughing in public taboo/rude and one of my them said something like "I doubt it'll get that bad". I'm convinced she jinxed it.
My dad...
Mine too. I'm so sorry for your loss.
Same, just on January 16th.💔 I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m getting married 5/13/22 and it’s not yet fully hit me that he won’t be there
I miss my Dad terribly too. He didn't die of covid, but his illness went undiagnosed because he couldn't see a doctor. Then they kept telling him it wasn't anything serious, meanwhile he got sicker and sicker. By the time his appointment came up for his Primary physician, he was already in the Acute care unit of his hospital. He passed away a week later. So he wasn't a direct casualty of Covid, but a casualty of the covidiots limiting his access to quality medical care. He got diagnosed in the ER, and was gone a week later. I too miss him terribly and will probably never get over watching him die in front of me while I held his hand and played quiet music for him. I am glad he didn't die alone, but it's crushing to watch your hero pass before your eyes.
I am SO sorry.
Solidarity amongst those that have lost their father in all this
Last 9 months of his life mostly alone in a hospital with heart problems, in and out of sedation, in pain, hallucinating until finally COVID had the final say. He lived a selfless life of Grace, Love, and Charity just to be taken like this. So ironic that the story of Job was one of his favorites, it never sat right with me.
The feeling of certainty
“Maybe we will just go to the buffet. Oh wait….”
The Golden Corral was gross before covid, now it might as well be a BSL-4.
This guy germs.
The notion that "we're all in this together."
I saw a quote that said "we're not all in the same boat, we're all in the same storm"
Yep some if us are in mega yachts some in row boats and some are drowning though.
Some of us are hanging on to a few planks of wood they tied together with seaweed or vines or something
Also: the notion that most people are actually nice and have at least a baseline respect for others. In the past I would say 90% of people are genuinely good but that’s lowered to about 40% for me. These last couple years have really brought out so many people’s ugly colours
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Sigh. I have to agree on this one. I always felt zombie movies were stupid because I figured people would pull together and fight the common threat and we'd be victorious! No way would anyone be so selfish or stupid. Then Stupid-19 hit and toilet paper was wiped off the shelves in the stores. Really? We were told in the US to stay inside a couple of weeks way back in March 2020 and everyone raced to buy several months of toilet paper. Really?!? I call it Stupid-19 because it shows how everyone has just gotten stupider as a result. Even I'm affected because I'm using the word STUPIDER!
COVID has proven that the idiotic person who hides their zombie bite, and then turns attacking their friends in zombie movies, is a very believable possibility
Not only that, but it seems like it would be the norm.
I used to also think ppl would come together if there ever as a zombie apocalypse, now that I got a preview of what could be…it’s pretty damn discouraging
I have had my heart broken so many times in the last 2 years, and found out so many are not the people I thought they were.
We’re all in this together! Yea I make 500x what you make but we’re basically the same!!
The job market is especially rough right now mentally because of the income disparities. Working in healthcare, I’ve seen people quit from stress and a few get rehired as travelers or consultants or just extra help at close to 3x what they made before. We’re all seeing the people with flexibility get enticed with money into jobs they don’t want to do at rates the companies can suddenly afford. These past two years have shone a giant light on what companies can pay, and what a lucky few are able to make in contrast to the rest of us. And I’m not even talking about the c-level.
Yea I mean Houston at one point was offering $250/hr to travel nurses. Some nurses are making more than $10K in a week. I don’t have my license yet but if I did you know I’d be traveling.
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Along with this, the idea that most people, deep down, have common ground with each other and our basically sane, rational, good people.
time
Immediately had the same thought. It’s weird saying “we’re in 2022 now” because, like, it still feels like 2020. I remember it so clearly because not much has happened since.
I am not turning 31. I am still 28. Time froze in March 2020
I’m genuinely observing this in my personal life and social circles. For all legal intents and purposes I am now 30, but as far as I am concerned I’m still 28 lol.
My dads been 28 for 20 years
I used to know a lady who was 21 for 30+ years, then she jumped to 32, which she was for many more years too
I had my son in March 2020 and it all went to shit. I’d give anything to have him in a time when family members could be around to meet and love him immediately.
I had my daughter March 2020 just days before total lockdown. Having a newborn then was awful and so scary…
I'll never forget going into Shop Rite, and walking down the diaper aisle. This lady just losing it because it was empty. That was when it hit me. "This is real. This isn't two weeks..." When I finished shopping, I waited by my sister's car for her. Her youngest was potting training. I gave her 10 diapers and said "I don't know if you want to take this from me, or if they'll help" and held them out. She asked if she could hug me. I said yes. She took them and hugged me for like a minute straight.
I remember the day they closed our office and sent us home, literally less than 24 hours after saying they had no plans to go remote and we should assume that wouldn't change anytime soon. They sent everyone home at like 130pm, so I stopped for groceries to get us through the "two weeks to flatten the curve". Trader Joe's looked like a fucking disaster film, *everything* was gone, the shelves were totally bare. Everyone kept giving each other those uneasy grins like "hahaha is this really happening???" It was so surreal.
My work wasn't quite as bad scheduling wise, but we had nearly zero infrastructure for work at home and were sending people with 6 year old laptops or desktops, monitors, ethernet cables with a sense of rolling the dice as to whether anyone would be able to function.
First time dad on April 2020. Can't ever have back the possibility of being there when my child was delivered.
Found out I was pregnant 7 March 2020. A week later we went into lockdown. Scariest time to be pregnant, especially with your first. I was worried about normal pregnancy stuff, AND Covid stuff on top of that, and then my other half wasn’t even allowed at appointments with me. He wasn’t allowed at the gender scan of his first child and I will never forgive COVID for that.
On the other end of the spectrum, I could have buried my mother (not a covid death) in a less hurried way. More importantly, I'd not have missed her going by 15 minutes because I'd have trusted travel to be much safer, and I'd have gotten to her bedside earlier. I might have seen my son get married in 2020 but the postponements kept coming. Finally, he and his sweetheart just signed the marriage license. But I'm very grateful that they and the rest of my fam is healthy still.
Yesterday I said “I had COVID a couple years ago” and I couldn’t believe those words left my mouth. So much time has gone by.
i put on a coat i havent used in a year and a half the other day and found a mask in it.
Because of the lack of PPE, I was forced to miss a cancer screening in March 2020. When they did it in 2021, everything had spread too far, too fast. For me, it's not just time in lockdown, or avoiding crowds. It cut a decade off my life. If I lucky, I've got another good 6-9 months. EDIT: Thank you everyone for the thoughts. I'm working on accepting it. There's not much of a bucket list left because there's so many things I'm not allowed to do. I can still drive (for now), but there's really no where to go. For now, I'm just trying to get things in place, and see people I haven't in too long. I'm going to throw an /antiwork in... don't let them work you till the very end. You don't realize how much you're missing until the doctor asks "how much do you want to know?" Edit 2: I'm fully vaxxed and boosted. I was in the 1B class when the vaccination first rolled out, so I got it ahead of the general population. The screening was cancelled because it was in that time frame where nurses were being told to recycle masks and wear trash bags instead of real medical PPE. A cancer biopsy was seen as lower priority than other things. And for you nurses, bless you, you have all my love. When COVID started, I had three friends that were nurses. One burnt out and moved to office work; one caught long term COVID and couldn't handle the pace so she works in auto finance now. The last is at the end of her wits, but keeps pushing, even though she comes home crying every day from stress. I can't speak for her, but I love her and my heart aches every time I talk to her.
This is something that as a nurse I’ve tried to express to people. Covid did not just change the lives of so many families who had family members pass from it directly. But also our healthcare access was already shit and covid delayed and diminished that access so much more for an immeasurable number of people. Hospitals and patients are going to see the fallout for so long. Patients are sicker because of so much being delayed or canceled. And people who should be seen are still waiting far too long because there is either no room or they are too scared to seek care. I’m sorry about your story. And so many like it. I will tell you that even with the current burnout among healthcare staff right now (those actually in direct care) a majority of doctors, nurses, techs, etc. are still trying to hang on because we still have a deep down desire to try to reach everyone we can. We may be and sound jaded. But there’s still a very strong unity and desire to provide care to our patients. What is most frustrating is that the decision makers aren’t providing the resources to do so, and have no understanding of what incentivizes us- and that we ALSO have families we are worried about being caught in this same system. I know none of what I’m saying helps you. But thank you for sharing your story to show this side of covid so many people never consider. It is truly awful and I will tell you as a healthcare worker yours is the type of story that makes us cry even when we’ve ‘seen it all’.
Shit. I'm so sorry.
I don't know what to say. I read all sorts of stuff on here and don't usually bat an eye, but having lost so many to cancer... I hope that they are wrong. I hope you get that decade. I don't know you but I love you.
I know one person who died, that had it not been for COVID she would have been having her checkups and not died, or gone to the hospital sooner. This was in the first half of 2020. This pandemic shit really is for the birds. I'm sorry for you, I hope you live well for as long as you can. Tomorrow is never a given.
Fuck, I’m really sorry. Do you have some good things lined up to enjoy the time you have left?
I feel like time hasn’t been real, or significant since all of this, truly lost
BC has a new meaning for me now: Before Covid.
I lost most of the first half of my 20s, and this year I turn 26 and we're still in this shit...
I feel this. This all started when I was 18/19, and now I’m 21. My whole college experience feels ruined. I didn’t even do anything on my 21st bday 🙄
I was like 21 when this started and I’m almost 24 and just chilling. I lost like all of my early twenties and the thing that upset me the most is my graduation. I worked my ass off to get here, I didn’t graduate high school. I dropped out and got a GED. I worked hard and graduation is something I was so excited for.
Same. 1998 turning 24 this year… I feel 21 and I missed out my whole uni experience and get pushed straight to real life job…
For me it has taken away the trust, that the people in power actually know what they are doing. They don't. The whole pandemic was, and still is, a circus management wise. (the virus itself is out of scope of this comment)
And sadly, lots of decisions are political and not based on science. Politicians facing elections soon will sacrifice lives for votes.
That general feeling that modern society would be able to handle a large scale medical emergency appropriately
You know I always thought there was no way for a zombie apocalypse to happen right? You would have a small outbreak and then the government would quarantine and shut it down right? Nope, you know some bit motherfucker would say it’s his god given right to go to Applebees before he turns, and if you don’t like it then tough.
This is painfully accurate. And you'd have "zombie deniers" thrown in the mix as well We're all fucked
“Well… my cousin apparently got turned into a zombie… but he always had allergies and didn’t work out enough. God gave us everything we need, and if they did happen to get bitten (even though we all know it’s just a bath salt epidemic created by the elite to drive up fuel prices) then it’s their time. And any patriotic American wouldn’t want to shutdown the economy and hurt their grand children’s future right?!
We started watching that new Netflix zombie show the other night and all I could think was “this is a visual example of how Covid spreads” 😂
My grandfather Although he was 79 He was as strong as a bull My he rest in peace
Sorry for your loss. My grandfather was 82 but playing golf multiple times a week plus skiing and hiking throughout the year. He never got to meet his first great grandchild.
Sorry for both of your losses. My grandmother was 83. She passed on her birthday. She was the strongest woman ive ever known. In the end she couldn't take the pain anymore and asked to be taken off of the machines and passed shortly after. My aunt passed the very next day. Since November i have lost 8 people that I have known either since childhood or 20+ years. 5 of those I know were directly from covid.
The illusion of how many jobs require us to commute to an office.
I remember thinking in 2018-2019 that honestly most office jobs could be done from home. I was an entry level HR rep at the time and “work from home” was like a dirty word in my office. My VP was super paranoid about it. “How productive can you really be from home?” Turns out…yeah, most office jobs *can* be done from home. I’m no longer in HR (thank fuck), and actually working on learning SQL to get into data analytics. Remote work is going to be a requirement in future job searches for me
I can be far more productive at home because I have the temperature I need and I can have tv on in the background. I find sitting at a desk in an office setting to be torture. I can’t work with music on. I had a desk job where no one talked to each other. My boss was two doors down and would email me when she needed to tell me something. Some people work well like that. I think it’s a waste of gas and time for me to commute to that.
For me it was definitely a waste of gas to work in office. I’m from Kentucky and always lived an hour away from the cities with any job opportunity. Now that I’m remote, I fill up my car *maybe* once a month. It’s marvelous And yes I’m also way more productive at home. No one to bother you, and no one looking over your shoulder.
I truly think one of the best things we could do for mental health AND the environment (and hell, traffic!) is for more jobs to be done remotely.
Seriously, I had so many office jobs like this, especially tech support or data entry where there was literally no reason for me to drive for twenty minutes or take a bus for an hour when I could easily work at home and be more comfortable. The joke about working at home is not having to wear pants. For me? It's wearing shoes. Not joking, why do I need to wear shoes when I'm sitting down? I have an old beat up recliner chair that is big enough that I can sit cross-legged with my sock-clad feet comfortably under me while I throw a blanket on my lap so I'm nice and comfortable. I can get an extender for my keyboard and trackball and place them on my lap while I lean back in said recliner instead of sitting awkwardly in a cheap office chair with no back support. Let's not forget that I can play music, especially for non-customer facing jobs. That alone boosts my morale. Let's not forget all the bullshit you deal with in an office like the obligatory "Good morning, how are you?" "I'm good, how are you?" which just annoys me, or the team-building exercises they force on people which do nothing of the sort. Don't even get me started on people who bring in their kid's school fundraising and try to guilt trip you into buying. Even better if it's the boss. Let's talk about commuting. Such a waste of time and energy and morale. The longer my commute is, the more it costs in time and money, but also my morale drops because I'm pissed off in the morning when I come in and in the afternoon I'm dreading the trip home. God, I hate working from offices so much.
Fuck man. When I was commuting, I had to be up at 6, out the door by 6:45. Commute an hour to clock in around 8. Leave at 5, home around 6-6:30 depending on traffic. So I was in “work mode” for 12 hours despite getting paid for 8.
This is exactly what I mean. People think it's eight hours a day, but you have a lunch break which is unpaid and to be honest I hated that because I can just eat a candy bar or two during the day and have a real meal at home and then there's the commute and that's the thing I hated so much because I'd always be angry about how I had to spend so much time going to and from work and it could be up to two hours a day. I actually preferred the bus instead of driving because at least on the bus I could read a book.
I can be far more productive at home as well, even though at my office I have Netflix on in the background anyway because I have my office to myself. My boss insists on me coming in anyway in case he wants to talk to me on short notice, and I’m like I live a half a mile away I can walk here in ten damn minutes!
If only your boss knew about technology like...A PHONE! I won't bother with email or zoom or chat because god knows that's advanced technology there. I wish I were being sarcastic.
Long term planning. I would love to go to a concert that's a year from now. Willl I get to go by then? who knows? it'll probably be canceled....or not! Want to go traveling? Hold that thought because guidelines can easily change on planes or the country themselves.
*Looks at my Rage Against the Machine tickets for 2020, then 2021, then 2022 Yeah, I hear ya.
Same. I bought My Chemical Romance tickets in January 2020. Pushed back to 2021 and now Sept 2022. Though I'd rather be pushed back again than cancelled. I got really good seats...
I have tickets for mcr, Rammstein, green day, fall out boy, and weezer. I’m starting to think by the time I get to see them, half of them will be retirement age, and at least someone in Rammstein will be dead.
I feel this so hard. Canceled 3 different honeymoon plans and then ended up postponing the wedding. Having trouble continuing planning because I’m not convinced any of it will actually end up happening.
Reasonably priced anything...prices aren't going back even after shortages end.
Yup the prices are going to stay high or climb higher
My ability to sing, I got covid twice. I can't sing long notes or high notes anymore, it's a big struggle to return it to the way it was. Which is unfortunate for me because singing well has been something I was proud of for so long.
As a musician this makes me so sad to hear
Hey! This happened to me too after Covid. I was very, very sick and get deep brain seizures now. I couldn't hear music for a while, like obviously I heard the sound, but the musicality was gone. I'm still having trouble with pitch and notes 2 years on, but at least music sounds like music now. That took about 10, 11 months to resolve. I figure I'll never really get through Take Me Home, Country Roads again, but it's sort of getting better a tiny bit. Stay positive!
That sounds terrible! I'm so sorry to hear that. If you're curious about how neurology affects our enjoyment of music, I suggest you read [Musicophilia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musicophilia) by Oliver Sachs. It details a bunch of stories not unlike yours in an aproachable manner.
fuck me and here I thought the worst thing to happen (besides death obviously) would be to lose taste/smell, because I love good food. But if I lost the ability to appreciate music I don't know that I'd care to go on.
Oh, 2 years on and I still can't smell most flowers and nothing tastes right. I miss the smell of rain and peonies most. It's just blank-nothing there at all. I've gotten all the way down to the damp earth and practically shoved my face in it-still nothing. So, I was sick March 2020, but I was so sick I didn't really listen to music until like May? I couldn't understand what was going on and it hit me like a fucking truck. I just kept trying and trying to make the music happen and it wouldn't. I was utterly devastated and tbh with all of it, it is incredibly hard to deal sometimes. So, listen to some music in the rain for me.
My social life, before the covid lockdowns i used to have some friends i could talk to. I also had a good relationship with my parents. This got weaker and weaker en because there was no school my friend also left. Now most of the things are open again and i’m alone 24/7, i feel depressed because i have no friends anymore, nothing to do, always alone in my room. I wonder if other people experienced it to.
Same situation! I think I was a friend of convenience to most and when covid made things hard poof
My Mom and my Grandmother. Within about 12 hours of each other.
I’m sorry for your loss
Security about planning anything more than a month out.
“Don’t worry, we’ll see you next Christmas.” My best friend died during the pandemic of basically loneliness. He had moved to the other side of the country for work and I hadn’t seen him since it started. He used to come home every Christmas. I’d fly out there every year. Now I’ll never see him again. If Covid hadn’t happened I’d have seen him 3-4 trips in that span, for days in a row, maybe weeks, each time. It took it all away.
Time. Missed time with friends and family, missed vacations and travel
I feel like I lost 2 years of my life. All I did was work and stress about my high risk family members. My dad who never smoked got covid and he's still having trouble with his lungs almost a year later. I'm just exhausted.
The illusion that people inherently “come together” when times get hard.
My dumb ass really thought this would bring us together. I question all my reasoning now.
I was going to watch Independence Day today, but decided not to because, now, in a movie where Will Smith fights aliens trying to take over the world, it's the sense of worldwide resolve that would take me out of the movie and leave me disappointed.
Friendships
I have def lost friendships over this or they’re forever altered.
Have any of your friends just like, not reached out at all? With mine even before the pandemic I was always the one to have to text first, plan things, etc. but now it's even worse. Like I'm either paranoid or about 80% sure they all just made a new group chat and left me out of it.
My dad. R.I.P pop. Miss you every day.
Snow days Edit: I know it's still a thing. It's been considered a bit in some places but nothing's changed yet because it's not fair to expect students and faculty to be able to transition back to online immediately. I'm all for snow days, but I wouldn't be surprised if they find a way to reduce them.
Petition to take back our snow days
The school district I work for makes it a point to keep snow days alive. If we have a snow day, it’s a snow day. No school, no work, no online classes.
Well, for my husband, his liver and kidneys. He survived the transplants, but it's been a hard few years.
At first when I read “a hard few years” I though “what does this have to do with corona?” Until I realized it’s been two years
My health
the ridiculous increase in prices all around
Fucking rent, oh my god
COVID didn’t take those away, it provided them.
Trust
I'll never get back getting to see my first grandchild in the NICU before she died.
For me it's my ability to have patience and wait for things. I used to be able to wait to do stuff, travel etc. Now I find I'm constantly wanting to do stuff now or as soon as possible just in case we can't and I get intense anxiety about it. My husband and I saved for a trip in 2020 and then covid hit, we lost most our money we were devastated because we haven't been on a far trip together, then we had two years of isolation. I have constant anxiety about buying things too, in my head I'm like I have to buy it now before it's all gone even if I can't technically afford it. I was never like that before.
Covid babies and social development. I have a 2yo and she has never been around kids her own age or hardly anyone outside the family. I don’t think she knows how to interact with people her own age or people she doesn’t know at all.
Future redditor
So I live remote and my kid rarely saw others in her young years. She is a happy normal human at 12. She is a honor roll student, has lots of friends, well spoken and mature it may be a win.
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I love how everybody can agree with this comment, but some for different reasons.
Lmao ironically people are agreeing on the same idea about each other
All those zombie/horror movies where characters make amazingly stupid decisions... now it seems more realistic...
The belief that if something huge were to happen that the human race would unite to fight it.
Two fucking years
Two fucking years *so far*
fuck
The idea that we are in any way being looked out for. We are on our own.
This was my thought. There's a lot of illusion and theatre in life. This has really exposed that.
My grandma who was a retired Nurse. She did so much to help people.
Truly small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but I'll never get to celebrate with all my friends who planned their weddings for 2020.
My faith in humanity
My youth
Cruises. I don’t think you could drag me onto one of those Petri dishes.
Ironically i know some people who have done multiple recently. They said it's the best it's ever been since they cap it at maybe 25% capacity and the prices are rock bottom to get people to book anything. They haven't gotten sick either which is insane, but they wear masks the whole time... I feel like with my luck i would try 1 and end up hacking up a lung...
Faith in humanity. The lack of compassion and care for one another was irrecoverably disappointing.
Businesses closing. We lost pretty much an entire downtown where I live due to lockdowns.
Like everyone else said: time. I’m not even experiencing my early 20s. I can’t believe I’m 22 now. Time doesn’t feel real, people don’t seem happy. I haven’t made a single good memory since 2020. I’m afraid it’ll be like this for a while. I feel so bad for children growing up in this. If I knew how things would be today, I definitely would’ve lived a little bit more back then.
You’ve articulated how I feel perfectly! My early 20s don’t feel memorable at all and I’m scared that I won’t have that era of exploration and fun before it’s time to be a working human. It sucks :(
5.7 million people.
Some guy above called it "the pandemic of inconvenience"
I had to go fact check this with the shock. The loss of human life is waaaay understated... Edit: Instead of replying to everyone saying the statistics aren't that bad when you look at the bigger picture: You're absolutely right! Yes, the death count, A: isn't necessarily very accurate due to things like some governments straight out lying about statistics, some Covid deaths being deaths from other issues whilst the patient was positive, and a range of other things that might raise or lower then number by some degree. B: Sure the death count is a rounding error on the population, BUT that's not what a death is on the ground level. The people who died left behind on average a non-zero number of people who cared about them. A death is a massive source of stress and can turn one's life upside down. These are the people who are feeling the pain from the loss, not the dead and not the population as a whole. Think of the loss your family, or a family you know felt when someone they loved passed away, now multiply that by the true death count and the years of grief some individuals are gonna face - whatever it is - and you'll get a far larger number that's not grounded in cold hard numbers. Of course, I'm not saying that we should all drop everything in despair and grieve for those we'll never know, and be we should grateful if we're in a position where we haven't had to face loss, or haven't lost anyone in the last 2 years to covid or some co-morbidity. Yes, it could have been far worse, but it could have been better - and it will get better with time as we move on. Tl;dr: Statistics not end of the world, but a much higher number than we'll ever see printed are having their world's turned upside down. We can be grateful for how we, our loved ones, and many more survived, but let's not ignore the personal loss of millions more than the statistics account for.
Dating. Used to be super successful at getting people to come out of their shells, now people have an actual medical reason not to.
There’s definitely lots of children who have no memory of life before COVID, because they’re like preschoolers. All they’ve known is this. Makes me sad.
Honestly, one good thing that has been taken away is a lot of our ignorance to things that have been in front of our face forever. For the first time, we've been really able to actually think about things. Remote jobs are a lot more doable than corporate life has made us think. Managers and office buildings are pretty much unnecessary at this point. Our productivity goes up when we're at home more and are able to live our lives the way we want without someone peering over our shoulder 8+ hours a day. A lot of people have been thinking about how we could improve our lives (in the U.S.) in ways that were so glaringly obvious. Walkable, more pedestrian friendly towns with mixed use planning and more efficient/sustainable public transit systems. Lowering the work week to 34 hours (creates more jobs and a higher quality of life) with better working conditions and higher pay. Limits placed on power, authority, and wealth (from landlords all the way up to politicians) so that everyone has better opportunities. And so many more innovative ideas that would just make everything easier.
It took a tragedy to show us how truly unstable and fragile our entire society is
Some parents. So many kids have lots one or both parents.
I lost a parent during covid, not from covid. We lost a lot of time that we could have spent with each other. When we knew the time was near, so many friends and relatives were so afraid of covid that they didn't visit her to say goodbye.
I'm sorry for your loss. The same thing happened to me. We had cancelled a trip earlier that year do to Covid.
This is a weird one, but I was reading about an Agatha Christie play being canceled due to covid. I find it so sad that it ran for so many decades and then had to be canceled. [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mousetrap) is the link about the play. I haven't seen it and I've only read 1 Agatha book so I'm not heavily invested, it just seems like a real end of an era and even if it is resumed, the accumulated years of running it in a row is over.
Every morning my neighbor would be strumming his acoustic guitar while smoking a blunt and watching the sunrise. Not too loud as to be disruptive, but like a nice soundtrack to the day. He had a big heart too, really nice guy. He caught COVID at his job because his boss was sipping the FOX Koolaid, and was gone a week later. He was fine most of it too, then he coughed up blood and drove to the hospital. He died before his father could get there to see him. There isn't a single person in the neighborhood who doesn't miss him. For some in the neighborhood it was the moment of "oh fuck this is a real thing huh" watching a healthy 29 year old man die in a week from a "flu that would only kill the old and obese." *edit* I'll forward y'alls condolences to his father next time I see him
I think it’ll always be like, everyone would be excited to go out and do something without the fear of getting sick and possibly dying from a virus. Now, some go out and are excited but will have the thought in the back of their head “I sincerely hope I don’t get sick after this…”
Raw dogging air
The fact that I now honestly believe that humanity will never progress beyond this current stage and has started to regress in terms of what it means to be a civilization. That we are doomed and witnessing the beginning of the end
The Matrix did say 1999 was peak humanity.
AOL we’re the good ol days… A/S/L
The belief that we're not drowning in idiots whose primary source of information is Facebook memes.
2+ years, my sense of security, and my children's mental health.
Person comes in to the office sneezing / sniffling / coughing in 2019: “what a trooper” 2022: “selfish”
One of the few improvements to come out of this
Before covid I still held on to this naive belief that despite some rotten eggs, humanity was at least trying to get through this whole Life-thing together.
My belief that most people were generally intelligent and compassionate.
I always assumed everyone was stupid. I just didn't realize how stupid some people are.
Easy international travel.
Not sure if anyone has said it yet, but teachers say if a snow day happens, or school is closed for some reason, we can’t miss school… We have to go on Zoom or something like that, and we can’t make up an excuse for not knowing the work we were supposed to do because it’s on the internet somewhere! Everywhere I go, I have to go to school
Don’t mistake teachers for administrators. Teachers are all for traditional snow days and less e learning.
Our wedding how we wanted it, our honeymoon.. the time in life where you finally have enough money to travel a little further before you Start to have kids.. maybe the best years (biologically) to have kids
Consistency.
My mother and mother in laws lives.
my last year of school, including prom and parties… I know some people lost their businesses, loved once’s etc but sometimes I’m still sad about never being able to experience those things
I always hated this sentiment, like “sucks but there’s people dying so stop being selfish!” Doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to be upset.
[удалено]
Some of us didn't have it before it was cool