To find the early COVID era nostalgic?

[Acco]

I’m mostly talking about the pre-lockdown and lockdown 1 era mostly but just 2020 in general to a lesser extent (but not 2021, I still hate it and it doesn’t seem that long ago). I haven’t thought about COVID for ages but I was taking about the toilet roll hysteria with my in laws tonight and then I saw a TikTok throwback to all the 2020 trends and sounds and it gave me a warm feeling inside. It’s an era I’d never want back but I remember the lovely sunny days in the garden in April and May 2020.
Anybody else feel this?

I lived in a flat with no balcony, terrace or outside area.
I had a panicking 6yo.
I'm a teacher and had to teach online.
I'm in Spain, we weren't allowed outside for two months - no stroll around the neighborhood for a ten minute walk - nothing. Four walls and stress.
I didn't see my family for two years.
We lost FIL and a co-worker of mine. I couldn't go to either funerals.

I can see and feel the aftershocks of 2020-21 all around me, my family, friends, city etc. If I have to teach kids online again I'll become an alcoholic.

Being on furlough, making banana bread and downloading Duolingo were not parts of my lockdown or anyone's I know.

'Happy days'? For you, I'm delighted. What about all the many people much less fortunate? Those ill and dying without seeing their families? Overstretched frontline workers dealing with the crisis? The many isolated and unsupported individuals suffering poor MH.

But 'happy days' ...🤔

By 'sitting in their gardens' do you mean working from home?

I was very lucky in many ways. However I was also just beginning slowly to find my way around socialising (ASD) and it all stopped and I haven’t managed to get back to there. I hated Covid.

No, it was horrible and frightening to begin with, then my dad was put on the end of life pathway two weeks into the first lockdown.

I cared for him for 15 months until he passed, with virtually fuck all in the way of practical or emotional support due to Covid. I had to give up my job and ended up suicidal. I was diagnosed with PTSD at the beginning of the this year and have only started to get my life back on track over the last six months.

So no, I don’t feel remotely nostalgic about it, and frankly I’d be delighted to never to hear another word from the lucky/privileged people who spent their time baking sodding banana bread and sunbathing.

People's perceptions about lots of things differ. I for one am glad that some people found it to be a happy time, why should everyone feel obliged to feel miserable and like it was shit just because it was for others? Very selfish and strange attitude.

2020 was probably the worst year of my life. I'd just lost my Mum unexpectedly at the end of 2019. 2020 saw both my Dad and DP diagnosed with cancer. Hardly got to see my Dad before he died. DP had his diagnosis alone. Luckily (not sure that's the right word) he died at home as he refused point blank to go to hospital. Both his and my Dad's funerals were grim. Lockdown meant DD and I were completely alone.

So no I have absolutely no nostalgia for that time period.

Thank you

Same.

Outwardly no - I was fortunate to be working throughout.

But I was so isolated. 3 young DC, single parent, no help. All the small internal daily interactions that lifted me - all gone & I didn't realise how much I had needed them.

As a family we were very lucky and we do look back on the first lockdown fondly. It is possible to do this and, at the same time, recognise that it was pretty shit for an awful lot of people and that the reasons behind it were horrendous. We had some great time as a family in a way that would have been impossible in normal life. Others, of course, were not so lucky.

For context, I did lose an acquaintance from covid and was unable to visit my mother during her last months so it certainly wasn't all roses.

Yes we were. I could see a lot of covid fraud and public money myseteriously disappearing into black holes and doubted those making the rules were sticking to them themselves, but I was just one of those tin hat wearers apparently. Turns out it was true.

It's quite sickening when you read of people's personal accounts and suffering on here.

They shouldn't feel obliged to feel like it was shit. But they don't need to start threads saying how lovely it all was, either.

Are you serious ?!
Yeah, the weather was lovely … but just imagine being cooped up in a flat with no garden, kids all fighting, no money as can’t work, can’t see extended family members … all on top of being frightened to death of contracting a ‘new’ potentially deadly virus … yep, it was a blast 🙄

No, my Mum died alone in a care home of Covid

Yes I suppose i do feel slightly nostalgic at times. But I didn't suffer any personal hardship, which skews my experience.

I remember with fondness my early morning walks listening to Woman's Hour podcasts, the lack of traffic and noticing that the air was scented with flowers.

I loved our evening walks as a family.

But I'm looking back through rose tinted glasses.

That sounds so hard 💐

I kind of know what you mean, when I focus solely on my children. I loved having them at home, we did a lot of lovely things, sleepovers in the living room, movie nights, crafts, themed days.

Now that life is largely back to normal, it easy to forget just how scary that time was though, I think you might be blocking that bit out, OP. There was a time when we didn’t think that life would ever return to normal and that hundreds of thousands more people would die and continue to do so.

Thats before I even get on to thinking about my sister, a Covid nurse, living alone and dealing with horrific things at her work. Or the children I taught, whose parents worked on the front line, or they didn’t have a garden, or they lost a loved one. Nightmarish stuff.

Working in a respirator all day and multiple layers of plastic , so tired/hot at the end of the day that I was worried that I wasn't safe to drive.
Working with much reduced staff because of child care/vulnerable family members .
Living in a caravan so I didn't run the risk of passing anything onto my family.
Facing abuse every day from public who didn't agree with precautions we were taking , or who didn't understand delays in getting treated because everything took so long despite working longer hours .
The utter selfishness of many infected who , especially pre vaccinations, still wanted to put everyone at risk rather than be inconvenienced themselves.

No I don't feel nostalgic about it at all.

Honestly ? No. My mum dropped dead totally unexpectedly which was made so, so much worse with all the restrictions and bollocks of Covid. I feel like it robbed me seeing my mum for the last few weeks of her life

Absolutely not. Being on furlough was NOT great, it was shit. Not knowing if I'd have a job to go back to? Shit. Living in a flat with no garden. Shit. Having no adult company because I'm single and I had no one to "bubble" with. Shit. My only child having his first year of secondary school disrupted and being lonely as he couldn't see his friends. SHIT. A horrible time and I would never comply with it again (and by that I mean I would carry on seeing people).

No, it was horrendous. Trying to keep my household, elderly parents and elderly dementia suffering MIL in the absolute basics of food when everything was rationed to one per person nearly broke me. DH and I working fulltime plus tons of overtime meant we were last to the supermarket queue.

No amount of pleading and explaining to shop workers in our local tiny Tesco that I want 2 smaller cartons of milk rather than 1 huge one that was 3 times the size got me anywhere. There was no discretion from shop managers when I was explaining I'm buying for my parents and MIL as they were too frail to do their own shopping.

Basic common sense, humanity and empathy disappeared and was replaced by absolute selfishness and profiteering. All the bulk buying, inevitable food waste, hatred of 'lazy' furloughed workers who had no choice in it and immediately took a 20% pay cut.And, that's just my little world,

Add in all the NHS and Social Care workers literally being worked to death. All the tens of thousands of people dying before their time. Families not allowed to be there and hold their dying relatives hand.

I'm not going to start on the unforgivable lying by our politicians or I'll be here all night...

There were some good aspects to it, amidst the fear and loneliness and everything else.

I live alone and have no green space, and worked alone, so many aspects were difficult.

But - one good thing is that people occasionally asked how I was, which doesn't happen now. People sometimes organised online gatherings and included me when they might not normally have, and don't any longer. There was, to a small extent, a feeling of neighbourliness and checking in on people ,which was good.

Also, I enjoyed some of the online content that was created in the first lockdown by musicians and so on who were not working, when it seemed like it might be for a short time only - there was a lot of creativity shared. Sadly it all went downhill the longer it lasted, and the more obvious it became that creative industries were not going to survive in the same way. But at first, there were some good things that reminded everyone of why we should support the arts.

There are usually some aspects of disasters that bring people together, and for those who didn't end up in awful situations, I can see how some of that might have been something that is now reframed as being a postive time - it's very different now that we know how it ended, which means that it can be reframed a bit. I think at the time, the uncertainty and fear was still prominent.

Considering ppl were seriously ill, dying of covid, and other diseases, couldn't see their relatives or attend their funerals. No I don't miss that time because I got to sit in the garden. It was awful and traumatic for so many people across the world.

Why not? They weren't saying lockdown was lovely but about how they felt about it- why can't people talk about that?