D.
The past two years have brought with them a new species of tired. The first was all jittery and tired, when the first lock down happened. The memory of that time feels like it was stuck in a deserted landscape, but with your lights and radars still blinking, still whirring, powered by adrenaline and restless. It was a short, sharp fear, in anticipation of a crisis that would be intense but soon over.
It was over soon. Sort of. It wasn't. Around Christmas last year, it was over again. The emergence of the Omicron variant means that Covid is threatening the holiday season for the second year in a row, as restrictions tighten around Europe and scientists advise the UK government to turn up the volume on their demands for more curbs.
The British experience is different from most of the world because of our government's incompetence and corruption. The uncertainty, the stop-starts, the anticipation of life changing overnight, has been a global experience that is still ongoing. Once again, airports are shut down. As many start planning to travel home for holidays, a rumour has started that there is a rise in infections. I've heard them say that there will be another domestic travel ban, another last-minute intervention by authorities, and that there will be another lockdown.
When you don't seem to be able to complete the most simple, a new kind of tired, hot with anger towards politicians who have acted recklessly, sets in: a confused, self-berating tired, when you don't seem to be able to complete the most simple. It's a glass-eyed tiredness, scrolling but not absorbing, trying to become animated by force-feeding yourself the news and images of a world you can't experience.
A sloppy tiredness is creeping in. You will recognize it in someone who has felt it. You are tired after months of following every single rule, and you are tempted to skip a test and go about your business if you are not feeling well. You can still make a few visits to the pub even if you don't have a Christmas party. You might not do other small things that seem worth the effort, you might let your mask slip on a journey home, and you might take the packed train because you are too tired to wait for the next one an hour later. I have written about how family and friends across the African continent have banded together to pool resources in the absence of public health support, but now I can see their resolve weaken with every death, with every economic blow. Their efforts at mask-wearing and social distance have been put off by the fact that their trials will not end without proper healthcare and vaccines. We tend to think of our behavior in terms of compliance with the rules or rebellion. The reality is that after two years of carrying the weight of responsibility for your safety but also your family's, there is a drift: knees buckled after sharing airspace with every single stranger.
The jeopardy comes in here. The big victories don't come in one heave, one big push in the right direction that will deliver normal life. The small moments of perseverance and resolution are what they come in. They are solitary and unrewarded.
Whether you are in Africa or Europe, whether you are well-off or struggling, your efforts to maintain good pandemic manners and protocols will appear trivial, dwarfed by epic systemic failures of governance and mocked by the hypocrisies of those who make the rules but do not follow them. It seems to me that the basis of self-esteem and credibility in your life is the result of getting started again and again.
I think the key is to acknowledge the fatigue and make allowances for it, to see it as a place to make a recovery.
The end of a year is a good time to make resolutions. I am just shooting for survival as we wrestle with a new variant and a new wave, making grim calculations and weighing up risks to elderly people, steeling ourselves for the prospect of new restrictions and searching for the will to follow them.
Being tired and being tempted to give up is part of the essential rhythm of life and my only hope is to make peace with that. My hope is that your year-end is one of respite and replenishment. Keep going if it isn't. Get going again.
Nesrine is a columnist.
