Picture by Emily

Come la pandemia mi ha regalato la libertà

Questo è il mio personale resoconto di come è cambiata la mia vita durante la pandemia. O come sarebbe dovuta cambiare comunque.
Netherlands, Western Europe

Story by Emily. Translated by Daniela Pratesi
Published on July 12, 2022.

This story is also available in GB



Per iniziare, riconosco che la mia storia è scritta da una prospettiva privilegiata. La pandemia non mi ha fatto perdere la casa, gli affetti, il lavoro o la vita. Lo ammetto e riconosco di essere stata immensamente fortunata. Questo è il mio personale resoconto di come è cambiata la mia vita durante la pandemia. O come sarebbe dovuta cambiare comunque.

Dopo un anno e mezzo di lockdown, sentivo un gran desiderio di ‘ritorno alla normalità’. Per ‘normalità’, intendevo andare a prendere un drink in un bar, andare a cena al ristorante, conoscere gente nuova e vivere nuove avventure. Ma, se mi guardo indietro, anche se questi elementi rappresentavano per me la normalità e occupavano gran parte della mia vita pre-pandemia, non era questa la ‘normalità’ a cui desideravo tornare.

Ero affetta da un grave caso di FOMO, la paura di essere esclusa. Ero costantemente in cerca di nuove esperienze.

Prima del 17 marzo 2020, quando l’Olanda è entrata in lockdown, la mia vita consisteva di tutte le attività di cui sopra. Ogni sera. Nessuna esclusa. Vivevo da sola e dicevo sempre: “Mi va bene stare a casa da sola durante il giorno, pur di non restare sola la sera.” Per me, la sera era il momento di vedere gli amici, preferibilmente gli amici dei miei amici. O gli amici degli amici dei miei amici. Quanta più gente nuova possibile. Ero affetta da un grave caso di FOMO, la paura di essere esclusa. Ero costantemente in cerca di nuove esperienze. E poi ero sempre disponibile: se qualcuno chiamava, tra un impegno e l’altro riuscivo sempre a trovare tempo per chiunque. 

“Se hai bisogno di parlare con qualcuno, io ci sono,” dicevo a tutte le persone che frequentavo.

E poi …. Io e il resto del mondo siamo rimasti bloccati a casa. Due settimane di autoisolamento, un anno intero di lockdown. Eppure restavo sempre disponibile per tutti. Qualcuno aveva voglia di una videochiamata? Eccomi qua. Una passeggiata a distanza di sicurezza? Ci sto! In quel periodo, mi sono anche innamorata per la prima volta, e lo schema era lo stesso. Tutte le volte che mi cercava qualcuno, io ero disponibile. 

A causa del Covid, non potevo rifugiarmi nella folla, lontano dalle difficoltà.

Il primo amore ha anche provocato la mia prima delusione. Ero completamente KO. Soffrivo ed ero diventata piuttosto egocentrica. Non riuscivo a relazionarmi con nessuno, a parte gli amici più cari. Non avevo voglia di parlare con nessuno e stavo quindi disimparando il bisogno costante di essere disponibile. Un mese dopo, ho cominciato la terapia. Non sono andata in terapia per curare la delusione d’amore, ma mi sono comunque resa conto che questo bisogno di essere sempre disponibile influiva sulle mie relazioni. 

A causa del Covid, non potevo rifugiarmi nella folla, lontano dalle difficoltà. Era costretta a fermarmi e riflettere: riflettere sul mio comportamento, sulla mia vita passata e sulle persone che fanno parte della mia vita. Un’esperienza amplificata da quello che ho scoperto durante la terapia sui miei schemi comportamentali. 

Ne sono derivati cambiamenti piuttosto drastici. Mi sono confrontata con persone che ritenevo amiche. Ho chiesto (e ottenuto) risposte dalla persona di cui ero stata innamorata. Ho scoperto quali aspetti della mia vita avevo interiorizzato a causa delle aspettative altrui e quali appartenevano invece a me. Per esempio, mi sono data al cucito, un’arte che volevo imparare da anni ma non avevo mai avuto il coraggio di studiare, perché “gli altri probabilmente lo sapevano fare meglio di me.” 

Ho permesso a me stessa di scoprirmi. Una cosa che non avrei potuto fare se io e il resto del mondo non fossimo stati costretti a fermarci. E di questo sono grata.


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.

 

Other Stories in Italiano




Show all

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