Cabin fever

Staying inside

Stay inside, they said. Mother's Day on Sunday with no mother. Bank balance dropping but no job. Grocery stores with no food – a feeling of emptiness, endured by 90% of the population.

The claustrophobic feeling haunts many, including me. And yet who am I to complain, when other populations in the world live under the thumb of a dictator, must experience this feeling day in, day out, and our government does this for our own good? It has not yet been a week and they say we have at least another twelve weeks to go? Stay inside.

Before you are quite alone, you imagine that isolation is intrinsically linked with productivity. I can thoroughly dispute this hypothesis, with extremely well-tested evidence. It is guaranteed that many a person has scrolled through Pinterest or Instagram, catching glimpses of aesthetic study areas, picturesque desks and ultimate motivation tips, and every victim of these visions of perfection vows that when he or she is alone, their lives will be a direct reflection of this. But no. Five hours on Instagram, one on Snapchat, and three on others: my phone usage reports my true activity. And despite my disgusting amount of activity spent on these apps, how quickly do I reply to people's messages? Even slower than normal. You'd think that loneliness would have the opposite effect – perhaps it does on some days.

People are scared. Some are ignorant, and others spout warnings to those who are less mindful of where the contents of their nostrils land. Really, everyone is in the same boat, but this boat is sinking quicker than the Titanic and people are not there for each other – why buy everything in the supermarket when the isolated and vulnerable have twice the need of you, have bare cupboards whereas yours are already vomiting pasta? In the same way that there were insufficient lifeboats for the Titanic's passengers, this country was not ready for the Coronavirus. Nor was the world, but even two months ago there was a blanket of blissful ignorance over the UK – the evil virus was spreading like oil through China – yes, sad, but was it affecting us? No. The virus, however, was one, two, even three steps ahead of the British Government. It crossed the oceans (this time on a boat that wasn't sinking) and sank its spikes into the United Kingdom and now we finally care. Now we are frustrated and angry and making memes on the situation after everyone was asked to stay inside.

As I am writing this, even now, it is a procrastination mechanism to delay catching up on a week of online lectures. The rhythm of life is missing, and with that the beautiful melodies of friends that made the blank stave of my life a joy. True, we are connected better than ever before through social media – but negative aspects also exist. Through social media comes comparison, for instance viewing someone's exciting social isolation on their story – or a meme of how someone FaceTimed five different people today and I messaged three. There also comes the persistent trickle of Coronavirus news. A few days ago, I understood that you must wash your hands for one "Happy Birthday" – today I heard it had been upgraded to two. How worried should I be? Am I hygienic enough? How can we fight a virus we know nothing about? Vaccines to be delivered in a year's time – how many people will suffer before that? An uncountable amount of unanswered questions that cannot be discussed properly as we have to stay inside.

Today, I was more productive than I have been all week – perhaps there is a way forward in these new times, and we have to adapt to them the best that we can. It does not change the circumstances for many people, and we must think of the less fortunate and remember that there are those with many more problems than ours. I am merely a student who is begrudging coming home away from her friends; if I am feeling this way, how must everyone else who are losing their jobs be feeling? Or the elderly, socially isolated for 12 weeks? Or NHS workers, risking their lives on a daily basis to only go food shopping to fuel their exhausted bodies after their shift ends to find the shelves empty? At any other time, being told to stay inside is a luxury and now everyone complains. I complain. Yes, my holidays were cancelled. Yes, Coronavirus has brought a premature end to my fun. But it is all about mindset. Yes, I have just moaned for over 500 words about my non-productivity, but I had a little dance before bed today to one of my favourite songs – sometimes being alone is freeing. Instead of begrudging this isolation, why not make the most of staying inside, get on your shit and get your life sorted? Because damn, if that's what you look at Pinterest for and dream about, get the fuck on and do it.