Picture by Emily

How the Pandemic Brought Me Freedom

This is my personal account of how my life changed during the pandemic. Due to it, or in spite of it.
Netherlands, Western Europe

Story by Emily. Edited by Edel Malene Farstad
Published on August 30, 2021. Reading time: 4 minutes

This story is also available in it



To start, I acknowledge that my piece is written from a point of privilege. The pandemic has not resulted in my loss of housing, loved ones, livelihood or life. I recognize this and my immense fortune. This is my personal account of how my life changed during the pandemic. Due to it, or in spite of it. 

One and a half years into the pandemic, I definitely feel the urge for things to get “back to normal.” “Normal” meaning drinking in bars, eating at restaurants, meeting new people and experiencing new adventures. But if I look back, while these elements were indeed normal for me, and a big part of my pre-pandemic life, this is not a “normal” I wish to go back to.


I was dealing with major FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). I constantly wanted new experiences.

Before 17 March 2020, when the Netherlands went into lockdown, my life consisted of all the activities mentioned above. Every. Single. Night. I live alone and I always used to say: “I’m fine being home alone during the day, as long as I’m not alone in the evenings.” For me, evenings were the time for meeting friends, preferably friends of friends. Or friends of friends of friends. As many new people as possible. I was dealing with major FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). I constantly wanted new experiences. I was also always available: someone called, and I’d manage to squeeze them into my schedule. 

“I’m here for you, whenever you need to talk,” I said to literally every single person in my life.

And then... I, and the rest of the world, were stuck at home. Self-isolation for two weeks, mandatory isolation for a full year. Still, I was constantly available. You want to Facetime? I’m there. Socially distanced walking? Count me in! During this period, I also fell in love for the first time and the same pattern continued. I was available when people wanted me to be. 


Because of Covid, I couldn’t run straight into a crowd, away from difficult things.

Falling in love for the first time also resulted in my first heartbreak. I was completely incapacitated. I was grieving and became quite egocentric. I was unable to reach out to anyone other than my closest friends. I was unwilling to talk to most people, and, as a result, unlearning the incessant need to be available. A month later, I started therapy. While the breakup was not the reason I started therapy, I came to recognize that my need to be constantly available affected my relationships. 

Because of Covid, I couldn’t run straight into a crowd, away from difficult things. Instead, I was forced to sit and reflect: reflect upon my own behavior, my past life, and the people currently in my life. The experience was enhanced by the discoveries I made about my behavioral patterns during therapy. 

It resulted in some pretty drastic changes. I had confrontations with people I considered friends. I requested (and got) answers from the person I had been in love with. I discovered which aspects of my life I had internalized due to expectations of others, and which were my own. For example, I picked up sewing, a skill which I had wanted to learn for ages, but never dared to teach myself, because “others could probably do it better than I ever could.” 

I allowed myself to discover me. This is something I would not have been able to do if the world and I had not been forced to a complete standstill. For that, I am thankful. 


How does this story make you feel?

Follow-up

Do you have any questions after reading this story? Do you want to follow-up on what you've just read? Get in touch with our team to learn more! Send an email to
[email protected].

Talk about this Story

Please enable cookies to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Share your story

Every story we share is another perspective on a complex topic like migration, gender and sexuality or liberation. We believe that these personal stories are important to better understand what's going on in our globalised society - and to better understand each other. That's because we are convinced that the more we understand about each other, the easier it will be for us to really talk to one another, to get closer - and to maybe find solutions for the issues that affect us all. 

Do you want to share your story? Then have a look here for more info.

Share Your Story

Subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter

Stay up to date with new stories on Correspondents of the World by subscribing to our monthly newsletter:

* indicates required

Follow us on Social Media

Emily

Emily

Emily is writing under a pseudonym as she'd like to stay annonymous. Emily lives in Amsterdam and works with NGOs - and is intrigued by the art sector.

 

Topic: Coronavirus




Get involved

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

Share Your Story

Community Worldwide

Correspondents of the World is not just this website, but also a great community of people from all over the world. While face-to-face meetings are difficult at the moment, our Facebook Community Group is THE place to be to meet other people invested in Correspondents of the World. We are currently running a series of online-tea talks to get to know each other better.

Join Our Community

EXPLORE TOPIC Coronavirus

Global Issues Through Local Eyes

We are Correspondents of the World, an online platform where people from all over the world share their personal stories in relation to global development. We try to collect stories from people of all ages and genders, people with different social and religious backgrounds and people with all kinds of political opinions in order to get a fuller picture of what is going on behind the big news.

Our Correspondents

At Correspondents of the World we invite everyone to share their own story. This means we don't have professional writers or skilled interviewers. We believe that this approach offers a whole new perspective on topics we normally only read about in the news - if at all. If you would like to share your story, you can find more info here.

Share Your Story

Our Editors

We acknowledge that the stories we collect will necessarily be biased. But so is news. Believing in the power of the narrative, our growing team of awesome editors helps correspondents to make sure that their story is strictly about their personal experience - and let that speak for itself.

Become an Editor

Vision

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

View Our Full Vision & Mission Statement

Topics

We believe in quality over quantity. To give ourselves a focus, we started out to collect personal stories that relate to our correspondents' experiences with six different global topics. However, these topics were selected to increase the likelihood that the stories of different correspondents will cover the same issues and therefore illuminate these issues from different perspectives - and not to exclude any stories. If you have a personal story relating to a global issue that's not covered by our topics, please still reach out to us! We definitely have some blind spots and are happy to revise our focus and introduce new topics at any point in time. 

Environment

Discussions about the environment often center on grim, impersonal figures. Among the numbers and warnings, it is easy to forget that all of these statistics actually also affect us - in very different ways. We believe that in order to understand the immensity of environmental topics and global climate change, we need the personal stories of our correspondents.

Gender and Sexuality

Gender is the assumption of a "normal". Unmet expectations of what is normal are a world-wide cause for violence. We hope that the stories of our correspondents will help us to better understand the effects of global developments related to gender and sexuality, and to reveal outdated concepts that have been reinforced for centuries.

Migration

Our correspondents write about migration because it is a deeply personal topic that is often dehumanized. People quickly become foreigners, refugees - a "they". But: we have always been migrating, and we always will. For millions of different reasons. By sharing personal stories about migration, we hope to re-humanize this global topic.

Liberation

We want to support the demand for justice by spotlighting the personal stories of people who seek liberation in all its different forms. Our correspondents share their individual experiences in creating equality. We hope that for some this will be an encouragement to continue their own struggle against inequality and oppression - and for some an encouragement to get involved.

Education

Education is the newest addition to our themes. We believe that education, not only formal but also informal, is one of the core aspects of just and equal society as well as social change. Our correspondents share their experiences and confrontations about educational inequalities, accessibility issues and influence of societal norms and structures. 

Corona Virus

2020 is a year different from others before - not least because of the Corona pandemic. The worldwide spread of a highly contagious virus is something that affects all of us in very different ways. To get a better picture of how the pandemic's plethora of explicit and implicit consequences influences our everyday life, we share lockdown stories from correspondents all over the world.

Growing Fast

Although we started just over a year ago, Correspondents of the World has a quickly growing community of correspondents - and a dedicated team of editors, translators and country managers.

94

Correspondents

113

Stories

57

Countries

433

Translations

Contact

Correspondents of the World is as much a community as an online platform. Please feel free to contact us for whatever reason!

Message Us

Message on WhatsApp

Call Us

Joost: +31 6 30273938