Is life standing still?

[BiscuitLover3678]

This is less of an AIBU and more of a ‘does anyone else feel like this?’

Since the pandemic lots of things have changed in my life, such as having a child and moving areas. I also left my job that I had been in for a really long time. But the last few years have felt like a real jumbled blur!

I know it is partly pandemic but also we don’t travel like we used to or do that much. Years ago we did so many different things I felt like it broke up the years so you could remember everything. Now I don’t know when anything has happened! I was thinking about last summer and then I couldn’t remember if it was 2020 or 2021 and the fact Id lost a year felt so depressing.

I’m perfectly happy normally and like being with my family and I have some nice local friends, plus I have a different very part time job (again it feels a bit like a ‘limbo’ job).

Today I went and had a look at my old workplace’s website and realised so many people had left or changed roles. I then found them on LinkedIn and saw how much had changed. It made me feel so odd. It’s like in many ways nothing has changed for me and and yet everything else has moved on?

I don’t know what I want from this really. I just wonder when I’ll start feeling like everything is real again :(

Or is it going to feel like this for the rest of my life?

Also people with kids is this a thing?

I feel the opposite, like life is rushing past me - I think because I've been busy/tired...since 2020 I have had DS2 (Jan), finished my MSc (September) then gone back to work in 2021 and got a promotion/gone back FT in 2022...it feels like one minute ago I had a little preschooler and DS2 was an adorable baby, and next thing I know DS1 is 6 with the attitude of a teen, and DS2 is almost ready for the preschool room at nursery.

I feel as if 2020 and 2021 were a single year.

So since the pandemic has things changed or not? You say that you've had a child and left a have b, they are big changes. Is it personally speaking you feel a bit stale?

@Camomila

I feel the opposite, like life is rushing past me - I think because I've been busy/tired...since 2020 I have had DS2 (Jan), finished my MSc (September) then gone back to work in 2021 and got a promotion/gone back FT in 2022...it feels like one minute ago I had a little preschooler and DS2 was an adorable baby, and next thing I know DS1 is 6 with the attitude of a teen, and DS2 is almost ready for the preschool room at nursery.

Maybe I’m both? Standing still but also rushing past at an alarming rate. I turned 30 in the pandemic and now I’m already 32.

@Antarcticant

I feel as if 2020 and 2021 were a single year.

Me too. For me the summers are the same which I find quite depressing :(

@Ponoka7

So since the pandemic has things changed or not? You say that you've had a child and left a have b, they are big changes. Is it personally speaking you feel a bit stale?

Maybe that’s it. I think I’m still working myself out and what I want to do next.

I've a 4yo and a 2yo and I feel like a combination of the pandemic and the repetitive drudgery of raising toddlers can make it feel like time's standing still. I feel l have nothing to talk to anyone about any more. (I love the bones of my kids, btw, but there's no denying it can be difficult sometimes!)

I feel the same, I long for a holiday, the days have definitely all merged into one. But… I feel calmer, my chronic anxiety has gone. I’ve realised that most of life is actually completely outside of my power and being alive and being safe is amazing.

I'm a lot older than you (10 years older) but I feel th same. Pre pandemic my life felt full of incident and travel and culture and now I have a small DC and a big mortgage and it's all a grind. I really want to feel alive again but not sure how to get that feeling of living life again.