Pandemic Fatigue
The year has evanesced, gone without a whimper, left us without memory or existence.
Waking up earlier this week with fatigue deeply rooted in my bones, I Googled "pandemic fatigue."
To my surprise, it is a genuine malaise defined by Professor Cornelia Betsch, Heisenberg-Professor of Health Communication at Erfurt University, Germany.
She explains "that fear is the motivator for protective behaviour, but it wears off as people adapt to the threat."
WHO defines pandemic fatigue "as a natural and expected reaction to sustained and unresolved adversity in people's lives.
It expresses itself as self-demotivation to engage in protective behaviours and to see out information, as well as in feelings of complacency, alienation and hopelessness."
There was me thinking I'd coined the phrase because I've been using the term since mid last year, a feeling of unwellness characterised by being lacklustre, lacking motivation and energy.
Despite sleep, exercise and a good diet, it seems that pandemic fatigue will be with us for some time.
Pandemic fatigue is making me mentally tired and exhausted. It is wearisome, and I am sure we all feel it.
It has bought into sharp focus what I desire in life, whether big or small.
I admit I had big ambitions inspired by the women of Dynasty, the big hair, earrings and who can remember the shoulder pads?
I was convinced by thirty I would be running a successful business driving a Porsche while juggling two children and a Prada handbag.
I have a sybaritic tendency toward nice things, especially handbags.
My business has been a success, and I adore my children, but the Porsche, well, I'm not that enamoured by owning one.
This pandemic has taught me that ambition can mean a myriad of different things depending on whom you ask and is not gauged by the size of the car or house.
To clean the kitchen, laundry room cupboards and bedroom wardrobes is the extent of my ambition, and I am halfway to completion.
My ambition feels thwarted, stuck, unable to move forward, caught in a perpetual mouse wheel, and I realise that I have dreams that I didn't know I had.
Which have been bought into sharp focus by the pandemic and made me realise that the reason I feel this so-called restlessness is because I have been forced to reassess my life.
How often do we ask for more time? Its exigent demeanour harassing us to get as much done as we can to be productive beyond our capability?
Here we are with conceivably more time to think and plan to make sense of our lives; instead, it has exhausted us, or me at least.
The pandemic has forced me to take a step back from work and life goals because there are no markers, no differentiators, nothing to aim for, so I ask myself, what am I doing? What should I be doing?
I need to justify my existence that I must be purposeful in living, giving something to humanity all due to overthinking life's greatest asset, time.
My husband extols the virtues of going with the flow, ease up on work, don't feel guilty about kicking back and settling into an afternoon on Netflix.
But I worry about the bills being paid, what the future holds, how its lability will affect my children's future job prospects.
What is essential is that ambition need not be confined to work, but about putting our mental health and well being first, spending time with the ones we love, restrictions removed, staying healthy and forgetting everything else.
As one dear friend expressed in an email, what's important is to stay negative, be positive and embrace the unexpected.