As Mark Twain once said, “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” However, age looms over everyone’s head and time is constantly ticking when thinking about mortality.
Many would argue that “age is just a number” and that we can all embrace our childhood in later parts of our lives, but how did the pandemic serve to trick us?
For many the pandemic felt like a pause, something that time was never intended to do. The world halted and so did our internal age. Although we look older from the outside, we might not feel the same way on the inside.
What is the ‘blip?’
This can be described as what is known as the pandemic “blip.” A temporary period of cease across the world. Although our perceptive “world” paused, age and time were not affected.
Those who experienced the pandemic within their high school ages, still feel like they’re 17 and attending their first prom even though they are now well into their college years. The same goes for people in their 30s. They might be 32, but still feel like they’re living in their 20s.
Overwhelmed with the pressing need to settle down can be quite confusing when you don’t feel the age you actually are.
A Shared Perspective
According to an article from The Cut, author Katy Schneider describes her feelings going into the pandemic at 27 and her overall take on the ‘blip’ we all shared.
My skip, I realized, had carried me swiftly through what would have been my last couple of years of socially permissible carelessness. And what I’d dropped into didn’t especially appeal, particularly after having been trapped in the house-cats-in-a-bag style for three years: real adulthood with all its attendant concern
says Schneider.
While giving everyone a chance to pause, allowed for our state of mind to do the same. Could a mixture of it be the excuse we just don’t want to accept the age we are? That can be it, but how can you blame us for being all out of sorts when the world around us stops?
Schneider goes on further to explain that everyone felt this pandemic skip and no loss of time was worse for one set of ages than another. Every period of time in our life is vital whether we have children, graduating high school or a child starting their first day of kindergarten. We all felt the effects and are doing our best to make up for “lost” and ironically “given” time.
“This pandemic skip — the strange sensation that our bodies might be a step out of sync with our minds — happened to people of all ages. A friend skipped from 57 to 60 and, when she started dressing up to leave the house again, realized she felt distinctly out of sorts in her clothes — her dresses felt suddenly too short or too colorful,” says Schneider.
All in all, as much as we’d like to, we cannot stop time nor can we freeze our age. Unsolicitedly, “everything does happen for a reason” and we should only look ahead because watching the same movie twice doesn’t change its ending.
Do you also feel the effects of the ‘blip?’ If so, let us know by tweeting us @VALLEYmag on X!
