A FIT GAL'S TAKE ON QUARANTINE FATIGUE AND WHY THIS IS SO REAL

This won’t be easy to write and post however I am a big believer in being honest and upfront and I owe it to myself and my following to speak my mind and voice how I have been feeling for real tho this past year. The photo attached to this blog post was taken a couple of weeks ago on a weekend. I was hesitant to post it to my story and ultimately decided not too because I didn’t want to be like the Debbie downer when everyone was out living life and having fun on their weekend. I use my Instagram to uplift and motivate and inspire and I felt like by posting that I would be going against everything I believe in but then I thought about it more and I was like I am a real person with real feelings and I feel isolated, alone, and it’s a Saturday and I am crying on my bedroom floor. I thought if I am feeling this way there has to be others that feel this way too.

I have had a really hard time getting back into the groove of real life after quarantine and post-covid. It doesn’t help in my opinion that jobs have gone completely remote and team meetings rely on zoom calls. In one hand it is great working from home but on the other it is a constant contribution to feeling disconnected from humans and deprived of human interaction. If I had to put into one word how I have felt since the quarantine ended I would say “disconnected”. I consider myself a fun, bubbly, always down for new things, and adventurous gal and I have a lot of friends and acquaintances in a lot of different places yet I find myself more often than not feeling lonely and disconnected from everyone. I don’t even get how that is possible with the amount of people I know. I have always been a “YES” person but even started to catch myself declining invites to things and starting to just say “NO” for no rhyme or reason really. I guess I will try to dive into what I believe is the problem with my generation, society, and potentially what could be considered “quarantine fatigue”.

What could possibly be the root of all these problems? Here goes my thoughts. Technology. Our phones. The apps. The endless options. The obsession with bigger, better, prettier, hotter, funnier, better job, more money, the list goes on and on. I truly do not understand when this all happened but one thing I know for certain is that quarantine and covid didn’t help one bit.

I myself have always been a very “in person” type of person. I love to meet people organically in real life while I am out traveling and having experiences. I live for it. I joined a dodgeball league pre-covid and met so many cool amazing people that were so social and we had so much fun and then it was all shut down and it no longer existed. I lost contact with a lot of those people because it was extremely difficult and honestly pretty tiring and not my preference to try and stay connected with people virtually and over zoom and face time calls. Again I am such an “in person” person and love to connect with real people in real life, not behind a screen, so I bowed out of the virtual world that became everyone’s new normal for awhile.

I found myself back on the dating apps at one point when the world started to open back up and was completely floored that guys were still just trying to get me to “come over” and “watch a movie” when I had just spent an entire year on lockdown in my apartment honest to God watching every show and movie that existed on Netflix so I truthfully felt like saying well I have already watched everything on there this past year so I am good. I am human and I want to go out in this place called the REAL WORLD. If you want to just hook up cool do your thing but I am striving for human connection not just physically but also emotionally. Cool it’s nice to know the size of your you know what but also like I really want to know all the things about what makes you the person you are and I want to know about you and your life and your friends and your family and like ummm what used to be normal things you would want to know about people!

After tireless weeks of trying and coming to the conclusion that no one wanted to come face-to-face with me and matches preferred to become pen pals via Bumble I threw my hands up and said F It! I will focus on me and just spend time with my friends. My friends. Hmmmmm. Remember a lot changed during covid especially where I was. People used this time as an opportunity to move to other places, friends decided it was the perfect time to start a family, the cancelled weddings turned into elopements, and then I turned 30… you know that age where more than half your friends are getting married, the rest are already starting families, and then a small handful have turned into Katherine Heigl in 27 dresses and have started to refer to themself as “bridesmaid of the year” haha aka ME. Life kept going and moving for everyone but yet I sat back and felt stagnant and couldn’t quite figure out what to do differently to change this feeling that I just couldn’t shake.

I recently had a day where I literally had to put my astrology hat on and figure out what the hell was going on in the Universe and started to research what type of moon it was because I was truly in shock over the texts and calls one after another of friends or family who were literally on the verge of a breakdown and just in complete tears, myself included. The same story on repeat. I know all these people. I feel alone. I have no one to do things with. I started to just do things by myself because people flake and cancel. I got ghosted. I was blocked on a dating app. This person deleted me or stopped responding and replying. I feel so isolated. Everyone is on social media enjoying life. It’s more open in other places. I saw so and so on a vacation and no one was wearing masks, etc, etc, etc.

Oh social media and apps. Another blessing and curse. Do people think that because they are hiding behind a phone and screen and app that they suddenly have the right to be an asshole and mistreat people as if they aren’t human? The reason I went off the apps at the beginning of this year was because after years of not having them I was convinced to give it a go and be more open and give it a fair shot. I like many people have friends who met on the apps and are now happily married. When it was time to go on a date with a really nice guy I matched with that I was 100% interested in getting to know, I got myself ready and went to meet him on a Saturday night at a rooftop of his choice. He didn’t show. When I texted him to tell him I was there, he responded like an absolute coward and said he lost track of time. Then preceded to say he is still hung up on his ex and it wouldn’t be right or fair to take me on a date. So then I was done again and wiped my phone clean of the apps. I love roller coaster rides but not emotional roller coaster rides.

It hasn’t been easy trying to navigate life as it slowly opens back up and goes back to the new normal. It is even more difficult when I start to feel like I lost touch with a lot of people and when I look around and see friends in different stages of life like marriage, kids, house, etc. I chose a different life for myself and I did that for a reason. I had and have really big dreams and as I started to accomplish many of them it made me realize that no dream was too big. I chose not to settle in all aspects of my life including career, friends, relationships. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked how I am single and why and that I am their dream girl or whatever lets be real I would be living in a beach house in Malibu. When someone is ready to choose me everyday and get rid of the options and potentials that lie in their hands with one click and one swipe then I will know I have found my person. When someone tells me I am the biggest and the best rather than there is bigger and better out there then I will know they are my person.

My main point for writing about all of this is to let people know that they aren’t alone if they are feeling any of what I am saying. I have a good life and I am blessed and when I have fun I have so much fun with no regrets. The highs are extremely high but with that being said the lows are the lowest they have ever been in my life and they are really hard to come out of, especially these days. I always say this and mean it so much… check on your loved ones. Check on your friends and family. It is so easy to cover up loneliness, depression, being alone and sad on social media. It is so easy to paint a pretty picture especially when most of the people looking at this picture aren’t there with you in person. This picture is all they have to base you and your life off of.

If you got to this lengthy post about life and me being in all the feelings lately I really hope you take the time to reach out to me whether it is on social media, via text, in the comment section right below, or in this thing called IN PERSON lol and just voice whether or not you are feeling similar or have felt this way before and have advice for how to make it go away! I think it’s so important to get rid of the stigma that it is frowned upon or embarrassing to talk about mental health and how we feel. Hopefully you found some comfort in knowing you aren’t alone.

Stay Healthy mentally and physically,

XoXo,

Brittney