Louise O'Neill: The hope we clung to in 2020 seems to have dissipated, leaving way for a quiet desperation
XXjob 14/08/2020 WEEKEND ATTN VICKIE MAYE
It’s my birthday on the 24th of February and I shall turn thirty-six. It will be my first lockdown birthday. I just scraped by in 2020, and when I think now of how much I took for granted then – my boyfriend driving to Clonakilty to celebrate with me, not having to worry about garda checkpoints or how high the R number was, blowing out the candles on my cake without Googling “should we be blowing out birthday candles right now?” and “does blowing out candles help spread an airborne virus?”, – it feels as if that birthday was not just a year ago, but in another lifetime.
I have heard the jokes that we should collectively refuse to acknowledge the last year, insisting we remain the age we were pre-pandemic and hold onto that number until all of this is over. And yet I cannot deny that I feel practically aged since last February, as if I have been deteriorating, my bones slowly turning to dust while I give into another day of sweatpants and slippers.
I dress like a ninety-five-year-old woman who has given up on life and yet, thanks to the steady diet of sugar and stress-induced cortisol, I have the spots of a teenage boy. Where is the justice? A man jumped the queue in front of me at the supermarket the other day and rather than politely telling him I was next; I was rendered speechless with rage as I fantasised about murdering him and burying his body in a shallow grave.
All this to say, I am not my best self right now. Anecdotal evidence from my friends and family would suggest I’m not alone. This lockdown has felt different– harder, relentless. The hope we clung to in 2020 seems to have dissipated, leaving way for a quiet desperation. The bleakness of January didn’t help, nor does the inclement weather, and the sluggishness with which the vaccines are being rolled out and the incompetence of some government ministers have left many of us exhausted and weary.
Times are tough and the thought of a Lockdown Birthday might just be the thing to send me over the edge. But still, I shall not go quiet into that good night! Since the only people in my bubble are my parents, I’ve told my mother I want a fuss made of me. The kind of fuss that a seven-year-old child might demand – I want balloons and a homemade cake and a shout of “I’ll do that for you! It’s your birthday!” if I so much as even attempt to pick up a dustpan and brush.
“It’s not like you to want a fuss on your birthday,” my mother notes and she’s correct. I’m normally very *shrug emoji* about the day, it doesn’t put me up nor down as my Granny Murphy used to say. But these are not ordinary times, are they? We are living in the – gag – New Normal and in this goddamn new normal, I want a goddamn piñata stuffed with Lindt truffles and Haribo Star Mix to enjoy all by myself. Is that so much to ask?
If I’m being honest, I think what is bothering me most about my birthday is the inevitable reckoning with the idea of the Wasted Year. That’s what it has felt like: a write-off, 365 days counted on a calendar but nothing achieved. A squandering of hours, sourdough starters and and banana bread and buying yet more crap from targeted Instagram ads in an attempt to distract ourselves from the existential crisis that is life under Covid-19.
And yet I know too, that as much as I am frustrated with the idea of turning another year older with nothing to show for it, that when I am at the end of my journey, the time between 35 and 36 will seem like nothing. A blink of the eye, a minor blip. This strange moment when the world stood still and I decided that underwired bras and anything with a waistband were instruments of torture.
The world will move on, our lives will resume. But what about the wasted year for those who are sick, old, dying? As difficult as this time has been for small children, and as much as we might worry about their social and academic development, hopefully, they will have time to catch up.
But time is not a luxury everyone has. I can’t help but think of the elderly, stuck in their houses and unable to hug their grandkids; hardly the way they envisioned spending their old age. Or people in the final stages of terminal illness and those watching them fade away - what must it have been like to see someone you love die behind a face shield or a glass partition? If you were given a year to live and 2020 was it, how much smaller would your bucket list be as the world shrank around us? That’s what I’m left with now, this wondering. What must a wasted year feel like when you have so few left?
I’ve started listening to a Canadian podcast called Pop Chat. Hosted by Elamin Abdelmahmoud, the panel dissects the latest pop culture drama that is blowing up the internet but through a more inclusive lens.
Ignorance from The Weather Station has been described as 2021’s first great album. There’s an intriguing thematic link between heartbreak and the climate crisis and it feels like you’re listening to an artist at the top of her game.
