Is it Wrong to Love Quarantine?

I’ve always known I was an introvert. I spent a lot of time as a child playing by myself, just enjoying my own company, lost in my own thoughts, which usually revolved around whatever I was reading or watching on TV at the time. After reading Snow Treasure, I was smuggling Jews out of the country during WWII by way of the secret door formed by the A-frame of my swing set. After watching Grizzly Adams, I was a boy named Jeck Rex who lived in a cave with a mountain lion. When I was in first grade, my teacher sent me to the school psychologist to explore why I preferred walking around the playground by myself instead of playing kick-ball with the other kids. (Um…because I fear pain, maybe?) I spent hours wandering around the wooded hillside near our house, observing nature and creating hidey-holes under the trees. I got very good at walking across the fallen log over the creek. Well, okay, it was an irrigation ditch, but it was overhung with trees and wild grapes, and “creek” sounds much nicer.

When I was about thirteen, my interest in writing blossomed into a real passion, and I spent hours every day sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor in front of my blue electric typewriter, swimming in the depths of my imagination. I had acquaintances at school but only occasionally enjoyed “hanging out” with friends, and Mom had to bang on the ceiling downstairs with a broom handle to summon me to family dinner. Church classes and school events were torments for me, and I avoided gatherings in general. When I was a Junior, my distant cousin (as isolationist as I was) who was a Senior asked me to the Senior Dinner-Dance. Mom bought me a long, pretty dress, and Cousin and I went to dinner, and then came straight home again. Neither of us even fleetingly thought of staying for the dance part. The dress was hung in Mom’s walk-in closet, where it probably still hangs to this day. I never saw it again.

When I was fifteen, I lost patience with high school, applied to university, and was accepted. We lived near enough to campus that I could still live at home, though I remember Mom threatening at one point to make me move into the dorms to force me to socialize. I entered a program that overlapped with the Masters program, so many of the students in my classes were older, married, some with children. I had braces on my teeth and wore my hair in two braids like Laura Ingalls. Not much social interaction there, and my peers were still in high school, so I felt removed from them.

A Bachelors degree in Linguistics (specializing in Welsh, of all things) did not adequately prepare me for any kind of career, and I sort of fell into working in administrative support (I had never taken a typing class, but as a banjo player, I could wiggle my fingers fast). I joined a Young Adult church congregation where I was assigned to teach the women’s class and everyone was older than I was. Little by little, over the years, I was prodded and kneaded and pulled into situations where I needed to act like an extrovert. And I could pull it off. I could make small talk and conduct meetings and teach and interact with work colleagues. And I would often enjoy it at the moment. And then I would go home and crash, exhausted and drained and feeling weepy, without understanding why.

Flash forward thirty-odd years. I was married with three kids and two grand-kids, worked full time for a medical regulatory body, was still teaching at church, and was giving gardening and writing workshops and seminars on the side. I’d written ten books and done some book signings and presentations to book clubs, but writing was no longer something I did for me; it was something I did for others according to external expectations. I developed a few small health problems (not surprising at my age), I was starting to slip into depression, and I just felt a deep need to change something. 

Without really planning it, one day I pulled the Bishop aside at church and told him I needed a break. I said I’d been going full throttle since the age of fifteen, I’d been teaching for over thirty years, and I needed some time to cocoon and just let my inner introvert rest from all this hard work and stress of being forced to act like an extrovert. He agreed and released me from teaching.

About two weeks later, Covid hit.

Suddenly not only was I allowed to cocoon, my political leaders and health authorities were telling me I had to. No interaction with extended family or friends. Work moved home, and I was told not to even shop for food or go outdoors unless absolutely necessary. My inner introvert perked up, blinked around in disbelief, and then broke into a gleeful dance. I couldn’t believe my luck!

And then I remembered that Covid was killing people, frontline workers were strained to the breaking point, the economy was tanking, and the world was in crisis.

But I was giddy with happiness.

What was going on here? Was I an insensitive clod? No, I knew I wasn’t impervious to the distress going on around me. I could feel others’ pain acutely, and watching the news moved me to tears. And I wasn’t just experiencing a shallow pleasure at no longer having to face a long commute or line-ups at the bank. After some examination, I realized I was happy because, at last, I had the chance to be my authentic hermit self without explanation or apology. No one would take offence if I crossed the street when I saw them walking toward me. No one would push invitations on me that I would have to scramble to tactfully decline, or end up having to reluctantly accept. No one expected me to show up at church unfailingly cheerful and friendly and ready to serve. No more face to face meetings. No more figuring out the logistics of travel. I didn’t even have to make small talk with my hairdresser. The relief was deep and visceral. Other people are struggling right now with isolation. I crave it like a hot fudge sundae.

Without enforced quarantine, I may have gone on---unaware---for the rest of my life, suppressing my true self and biting off pieces of me in order to force myself to fit with the world around me. But being granted this chance to slow down, be quiet, and listen to the voice in my head and the pace of my heartbeat has been an unlooked-for mercy.

Of course I want the virus to end. I want to be able to hug my grandchildren and have my kids over for dinner. I want people to be able to resume the lives that make them happy. But I am now acutely aware that one of the key things that makes me happy is solitude. Quiet days spent puttering in my garden. The sun slanting through the window. A good book and a blanket. My dog’s fuzzy head on my foot, under the desk. 

I know at some point I will return to my office. I will go back to the hairdresser and the dog groomer, and I’ll venture into stores---though probably not often. I can enjoy others’ company but recognize and allow for my limits, instead of pushing myself to emotional exhaustion. As life returns to some semblance of normal, I will be better about building into it frequent pauses, pockets of quiet, and opportunities to be alone. I've always known I needed them, but I hadn't realized how keen that need was, and I'd always felt guilty for taking them. Luckily, my husband is good at solitude himself, and he can recognize (probably better than I can) when I need it too. I know I’ll still need to stretch myself sometimes for my own good, like exercising a muscle so that it doesn’t atrophy. But with new awareness, I will also acknowledge what I need, without apology, and allow myself regular time to be a happy hermit.

What have you learned about yourself during the Covid experience?