How My Life Changed During the Pandemic

​By Kenzie

The coronavirus pandemic threw us all for a loop. There was no way that we could have prepared for the 18 months of isolation, anxiety and panic that was caused. We were just doing our best and trying to do as we were told by the government.

For me, a 21 year old employee in a college in the UK, everything changed. Little did I know in March 2020 quite how much was going to change for me due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So I want to talk you through some of the biggest changes in my life thanks to lockdown and coronavirus. These changes made me realise how important it is not to take things for granted and how even in the darkest times, there is always a positive.

• Working from home

Before the pandemic, I had never worked from home before. Since I started working in 2018, I was used to being in the office, 8.30am-5pm, Monday to Friday. When my college shut down their sites and Boris Johnson told everyone to work from home where possible, I had no idea what I was going to do. I didn't have a work laptop, I only had my personal laptop which had none of the software I needed. I didn't have a home office; there was only one desk available to work on in my house and my dad ended up using that. I wasn't used to delivering training sessions virtually: how was I supposed to train staff on using technology whilst using technology that they didn't know how to use? It wasn't an easy transition for me. 
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In the end, it wasn't as bad as I expected. I got a work laptop, my office just so happened to be a soft office (also known as a bed) and staff slowly but surely became comfortable enough with technology for me to train them on it. I actually really enjoyed working from home - no travelling, I could sleep in for an extra 30/45 minutes, I got to eat lunch with my family and it felt like a win all round. Of course then the pandemic eased and college decided we had to be back in the office 8.30am-5pm, 5 days a week, across all college sites - not what I wanted, but hey. Working from home was fun whilst it lasted.

• New hobbies

One of the major issues with the pandemic was that everything shut down. By everything, I mean EVERYTHING. This included the places I used to go to for my hobbies, including acting classes and pub quizzes. What was I supposed to do now? Being stuck in the house 24/7 was hard. I am not the most sociable person and am not a big fan of crowds or people in general, but at least prior to the pandemic I had the option to put myself in those situations, should the reason arise. When that decision is taken away from you and you're forced to stay inside, it's not as fun as you might think for a pretty introverted person. There is introvertedness and then there is isolation, and they are two very different things. Just to maintain some level of sanity and joy, I had to find new hobbies that I could do without leaving the house and didn't require a crowd of other people.

Luckily enough for me, I could carry on quizzing, all due to Jay's Virtual Pub Quiz. You could tune in live on YouTube or Facebook at 8pm on a Thursday and/or a Saturday and take part in a pub quiz with five fun interesting rounds which varied each week. We had music rounds, we had entertainment rounds, we had sport rounds, we had history or geography and we, of course, had general knowledge (or geberal knowledge as it became known to the community.) I also started doing singing lessons over Zoom. My singing teacher had also found the pandemic difficult, thanks to the shut down of the world. She used to perform on cruise ships and be hired for concerts and events all over the country. The pandemic put a sudden stop to all of this. So she started to teach singing, and I started to learn singing. Pub quizzes unfortunately haven't started back up again yet, and we don't know when or if they will, but Jay is still running his virtual pub quiz and I'm now attending my singing lessons in person. I may have never started singing lessons if I hadn't been bored in lockdown.

• More involved socially

I'm well aware how crazy this sounds. How can I be more social in a lockdown where I can't leave my house or see anybody else? Despite having no in person socialisation, I had a lot of virtual socialisation that I've not had before lockdown. Before the pandemic, I didn't really take the time to chat with everyone I probably should have chatted with. There were members of my family who I would only talk to at Christmas or on a birthday, or I'd see the odd comment pop up on Facebook and that would be the only interaction we'd have. Whilst I didn't mind this at the time and would think up reasons as to why I didn't speak to them much or see them more often, lockdown made me realise that there was really no valid excuse as to why not. 

During lockdown, something that we started was a family game night. Around once a month, we would jump on Zoom with members of my family from all around the world. We had people in Australia, in Brecon, in Carmarthen, in Rotherham, in Dubai… we were spread to the four corners of the earth and yet we were all together. We were talking, laughing, crying, updating each other on our lives and we were even playing a board game. A board game - over Zoom! Before lockdown, we never would have even considered it, but being so isolated made us realise how important family was.It's important to keep up with family and friends now whilst you can, because you never know what's going to happen just around the corner.

• Job hunting

Whilst in lockdown, I started looking for a new job. I already have a job, and it's a good job. I enjoy what I do, training staff and designing content for them. I enjoy the people I work with: my immediate team are some of the most incredible people I have ever met in my entire life and I adore each and every single one of them and the staff I train are wonderful on the whole. But being in lockdown made me realise that I wasn't truly happy anymore. I didn't feel truly fulfilled. I wanted something new. I needed a new challenge. I needed to spread my wings… and that meant leaving my current job.

So I started looking on all the usual sites, LinkedIn, Indeed, Facebook Jobs, and applying for anything that sounded new and interesting. Customer service roles, training roles, artsy roles, social media roles - all things that I'd had little bits and pieces of experience with but hadn't done professionally. I had interviews here and there, did the odd logic test or personality quiz, and eventually found a job that I think I'm really going to love. I have been offered a job as an Internet Specialist at a car sales company. It means I'll be taking photos, writing descriptions, uploading to the website, working with the sales team and communicating indirectly with clients via the company social media channels. It's something different to what I'm doing now, in a totally different industry, with totally different people. Truth be told, I'm excited. Terrified but excited. I can't wait to get started.

• Body confidence issues

One of the final huge changes I want to highlight from during lockdown is my perception of my body. This is the only really negative thing that has come from lockdown, bar the obvious illness and isolation and, in very unfortunate cases, death. Before the pandemic happened, I was fairly happy with where I was at in terms of my mental health, my self esteem and my body image. Last time I checked before going into lockdown, I was the happiest I'd ever been with my weight and my overall size. My favourite clothes fitted great, my stomach didn't seem to stick out as much and I felt slim and like I could wear tighter clothes without having bulges and 'back rolls' as Alyssa Edwards would say. Lockdown changed all that though. As of today, I have gained a size, verging on two on my bottom half and I weigh around a stone and a half more than I did in March 2020. I know weight isn't everything but I hate my body at this moment in time. My thighs are thick and have stretch marks, my stomach sticks out and makes me look podgy and I can't fit into my favourite clothes anymore. That's because of the lockdown.

I started eating more and moving less. Those 20 minutes walks I'd do walking from my car to work, and vice versa - gone. Those evening snacks that I'd sometimes have - more frequent and fatty. When you combine more food and lack of exercise, you put on weight. That made me lose motivation. The lack of motivation made me desperately try and keep up some level of exercise. That exercise wouldn't result in weight loss, or at least not as much weight loss as I wanted. I sometimes even gained weight which, though it may have been muscle, really disheartened me and being so disheartened made me lose motivation. So the vicious cycle continues. I want to be lighter and fit back into my old clothes and see myself in a more positive light but I'm finding it really difficult to do so, and even out of lockdown, I'm finding it hard because the weight won't come off. Weight is always so much easier to put on than it is to lose and as much as I want to be a size 10, or even a comfortable 12, and as much as I want those scales to be below 10st, it just feels like it's never going to happen. It's really hard. The point I'm trying to make is that lockdown has made a real difference to how I felt about myself, both mentally, and physically and I imagine that it will have made a lot of people feel this way. I want you to know that you aren't alone.

Now, almost 2 years later, in December 2022 we are living in a new normal. Coronavirus is still around, new variants are causing mass panic and we feel like another lockdown is imminent with every Boris Johnson press conference. 

But I do want to give a few basic tips on keeping yourself safe in this new normal. They are tips you will have heard before and probably be sick of hearing by now, but they're there for a reason. They may not always be possible but I'm trying to be safe where I can, and you can too.

1. Sanitise/wash your hands regularly. Germs will find it much harder to survive on clean hands and surfaces.
2. Wear a mask in communal spaces or when in a crowd. The mask protects you as well as them.
3. Get vaccinated if you are eligible, and get your booster if you've had your first two jabs. No matter what the conspiracy theorists say, they are not 5G chips and they do help to keep you safe and protected.
4. If you have symptoms, don't leave the house except for a PCR test. You wouldn't want to infect anybody else.
5. Regularly test yourself before events or when you're spending time with other people. Even if you don't have symptoms, you could still carry it.
6. If you come into contact with someone who has coronavirus, isolate where appropriate and get a test if needed. Better to be safe than sorry.
7. If you can stay home, do. Home is probably the safest place for you.
8. If other people don't feel comfortable with close contact, be respectful and give them their space. Just because you're happy to hug everyone you meet doesn't mean that everybody else is.
9. Meet outside if you can. I know it's December and it's freezing but it's safer to meet outdoors than indoors. Wrap up in your biggest coat with some gloves, a hat and a scarf and you'll be okay.
10. Most importantly… OBEY THE RULES AND ADVICE GIVEN BY THE GOVERNMENT! Whether you agree with them or not, whether you voted for them or not, whether you like Boris or not, they have more inside knowledge about the virus than we do. They're giving us this guidance for a reason. People not obeying the guidance was part of the reason why we ended up having 3 lockdowns in 2020/2021, rather than just 1.

Please do your best to stay safe, folks, and keep everyone that you love safe too. I know it isn't easy but we will get through it together.

Here are some links to things mentioned in this article or resources you may find useful:

Jay's Virtual Pub Quiz: https://youtube.com/c/thevirtualpubquiz
https://www.facebook.com/jaysvirtualpubquiz/

Outsmarted (the board game we played over Zoom):
https://www.outsmarted.co.uk/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.qplay.outsmarted
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/outsmarted-companion-app/id1541321303

Websites for Information and Guidance on Coronavirus:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/
https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/index.html
https://www.modernatx.com/covid19vaccine-eua/recipients/​