The Turn Inward

It's time to come out of my covid shell

I rejected an on-line life as much as was possible during covid. I refused to do Zoom happy hours or Zoom Thanksgivings. I would not pretend that they were adequate replacements or “just as good.” No. They were not. They are not.

Of course there was only so much rejection of on-line living that was possible. I worked from home on Microsoft Teams for two years. We had the occasional in-office meeting to review a product line or some such thing that was deemed to be better in person or simply impossible on a screen.

But mostly I lived through my screen for the better part of the day like everyone else. My work day — which could stretch from 7:00 in the morning (for calls with European team members) to 8:00 or 9:00 at night (for calls with team members in Asia) — was grating in a way that I’d never experienced before.

I was always fine for the first few hours of the day. But by about 11:00am my brain felt scratched and fuzzy with a constant buzzy humming at the base of my skull. Some combination of looking at a screen, the sound of my own voice in meetings but from an empty room, looking at myself on a screen and the sound quality of others’ voices through the computer dipped my brain in a cottony white noise. My head sort of felt like it was vibrating but not in a fun way.

Late morning, I usually got up and took a walk outside for an hour before starting the whole thing up again and re-white-noising my brain until about 3:00pm. At which point I’d take another walk. But by then, it was just hard to pay attention at all. And I usually had another few hours to go. I did it. I have pretty extraordinary powers of focus. Think about the focus required to stay on a 4-inch wide balance beam, in competition in front of thousands of people, doing back flips and landing without even a wobble. With a broken ankle. That kind of focus.

Certainly my days had always started pretty early and sometimes ended on the late side given the global nature of my role. And while the bookends to my days had always been in on-line meetings — or more typically, pre-covid, on the actual phone (remember that?) — everything in between from about 9-530 was live and in person. With laughing and joking and teasing and prodding and agreeing and disagreeing all while getting stuff done and having fun while doing it. It somehow wasn’t enervating in the way that Zoom and Teams and all the rest of it is.

Then starting in 2022 I didn’t have a job anymore. I spent about half of that year writing a book, a pretty solitary endeavor. Every aspect of my life prompted me further inside my own mind, my own house, my own world. I had my family. They kept me turned towards the sun. It’s been me and them against the world pretty much since March 2020. It’s pretty cozy in here.

I moved out of the city I’d lived in for 30+ years somewhere during that still very on-line time. I set up camp in Denver. Life had mostly gotten back to normal but I didn’t have much of a social life. I knew all my neighbors from the get go. And we’re all very neighborly. But who would I call for Friday night girls get togethers over wine? Who was there to grab an afternoon coffee with to kibbitz about the latest corporate kerfuffle? No girls’ weekends to celebrate birthdays or soothe the newly divorced and broken-hearted. Certainly no one would call me if her husband was in the hospital and she needed help or company or comforting. No long weekend BBQ’s at our place or champagne toasts to the newly empty nested at posh cocktail lounges or — more sentimentally — the dive bars of our 20s.

I turned inward despite my best efforts not to give in to an atomized, isolated lifestyle promoted as “just as good” by the “stay home stay safe” / “we’re all in this together” crowd. I resisted it with all my might. And then I fell prey to it anyway.

When I moved to Denver, I mostly stayed home with my family as I’d been doing since the first “stay at home orders” in early 2020.

It helps that I really like my husband. I love him, of course, but I also really like him. We don’t get bored of each other. We are intellectually suited — we can debate and disagree and enjoy each other’s company.

We also have fun. We like doing a lot of the same things. We go on family bike rides to explore our new city.

We talk about books and politics and shows and films. We just watched the new Errol Morris documentary —The Pigeon Tunnel — about John LeCarré (worth watching). And we enjoy lighter fare like Beckham — the four part series about (you guessed it) Posh and Becks on Netflix.

Before covid we used to go to readings at bookstores, or hear public intellectuals “in conversation with” some other public intellectual at some small to medium sized theater in the hipper neighborhoods of San Francisco. We went to hear the novelist Sally Rooney in conversation with someone at The Nourse and she wouldn’t come out on stage. A fit of nerves or something. So we went to dinner and reflected on her books having predicted this kind of neurotic behavior.

We used to frequent comedy clubs — that activity was my choice, and he humored me. In fact, he always procured the tickets and surprised me with a date night. We saw Michael Che and Richard Lewis and Jimmy O. Yang and so many more. I’m somewhat obsessed with stand-up.

We had to attend a lot of sporting events — not my favorite — for my job. We went to 49ers games on the regular. We also — for fun — went to concerts at Levi’s Stadium — we saw Beyonce and Jay Z, Taylor Swift, The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead.

We went to the gym together on the weekends. Sometimes he’d even drag me to one of his favorite yoga classes (not my cup of tea, but fun to do together).

In short, we enjoyed. We were busy and social. We were fun. Or what meets my idea of fun.

But between 2020 and 2022, we grew accustomed to not doing any of that. And then we moved to place where we didn’t know anyone. Which meant I didn’t do my girls’ excursions or birthday celebrations. And we liked hanging out and being together at home. I stopped going to the gym — either with him or by myself — and instead I opted for long walks and rode my spin bike at home.

Oh and add to that I’m technically an introvert. According to Myers-Briggs, I’m an INTJ. So I lean inward. With a push I’ll just stay there.

And so here I am at the end of 2023 — nearly 4 years after the world shut down — and my life is unrecognizable in how very at home it is. I spend most of my time with my husband and two younger children. I don’t run in to people I know because I know very few people in my new city. I get invitations to do things all the time. I sometimes accept. But it’s weird. They aren’t my friends of 30 years.

I’m not complaining. We love it here. Maybe this is just normal for the happily married and middle aged. I could have plans all the time. I know enough people to make them. I could go to the gym at the JCC which we just joined. My husband and I could reinstate our comedy club outings and we have, though rarely. We did see Dave Chappelle in a tiny club here, at a surprise show. And that was fun. But then we didn’t do it again. We’ve never quite reversed the covid stay home inertia.

My point is this:

• Though I resisted the Zoom lifestyle, I too turned inward.

• Inertia is powerful. It’s hard to shift back to regular socializing.

• But I think I will be better if I do. Lighter. It’s just better to see other humans. To laugh and be silly or cry or talk and just be together. It connects you to the world. To other people. That must create more understanding and empathy, yes?

So I’m committing to it. I am going to make plans again.

I now go to work in an actual office so I see people there. There are exactly 7 of us, though 2 are remote so that means more Zoom with some.

I’m going to force myself to socialize with people I haven’t been friends with for 30 years. I will make plans with these new friends I’ve met in the past year and a half.

I’m going to call my old friends that didn’t disappoint me — the ones that never turned on me or shunned me or even betrayed me. Just the ones that didn’t do those things. The fact is there are quite a few of them but when I turned inward I turned away from them too. Because I just didn’t trust anyone anymore except my husband.

I can only imagine if I turned inward — someone who resisted all the staying home stuff — that others lives have changed measurably as well. Perhaps more so. I can only imagine that many are just a little bit more isolated, a little bit more resistant to going out and making plans. Not because it’s not fun. And not out of fear of covid. But because inertia is a powerful thing. And we just didn’t do any of that for so long. We know people are resisting going back to the office. Everyone demands hybrid and virtual and basically more time at home alone. I don’t think it’s good for us.

I’m going to push past the meh why bother, I’ll just stay home. I’m not unhappy. I’m quite happy, in fact. I like my life. I’m proud of myself. In the past year and a half I’ve written a book, made the better part of a movie, cared for my two youngest children, spent boatloads of time with my 20 year old who spent an unexpected 10 months with me, consulted for probably 8 different businesses and now I’m starting my own. That’s a lot. I feel good about all that.

But I just miss people that aren’t my husband.

This weekend I’m off to Oklahoma City for my 9 year old’s soccer tournament. And I will be visiting with my oldest and dearest pal — the first and most lasting friend I made in college. First day in the dorms, there he was. BFFs ever since though we rarely see each other anymore. I can’t wait. I’ll see you soon, Lance.

Now for some slightly hilarious photos of me and Lance from our younger years.