It’s time to admit that the pandemic fucked me up.

I’m not blind to the fact that, for most of us, admitting that is absurdly obvious. But for a while, I thought the rules didn’t apply to me. To be honest, I thought I was crushing the pandemic.

An entire childhood spent as an introverted only child who would rather watch TV than go outside made me quite suited for the pandemic. At first, I kind of loved it. The best part of the pandemic? No FOMO. There was no guilt for sitting on the couch watching TV. That’s what everyone else was doing. Not seeing anybody wasn’t a sign of social dysfunction, it was a service. My solitude was my greatest contribution to flattening the curve. Not to mention that my uncompromised immune system meant that as long as I stayed either indoors or masked, I had a pretty good chance of either not getting sick or surviving.

But now we’re coming out of it.

I won’t make the mistake of saying that the pandemic is over* but we’re either on the way out or close the complete normalization of COVID as part of our lives.

* As I write this, I’m positive for COVID. I’m also on the other side of a vaccination and two boosters and I feel perfectly fine, I’m just waiting for that damn second red line next to the T to go away.

And things don’t feel right. I feel like I’m in the midst of a pandemic hangover.

I turned 45 during the pandemic. All of my pants have elastic waists. I ask myself, “so, can I go to bed now?” far too early in the evening. My bathing schedule is a tad on the casual side. I drink too much. I wouldn’t say I lost my hair but I significantly pruned a garden that had been dying for quite some time. But the real pain is that the things that used to matter don’t matter anymore. Storytelling, improv, writing. They all faded from the forefront of my life.

The first time I ever did stand up comedy was In the summer of 2000. Ever since then I’ve spent nights and weekends doing some sort of comedy or writing or performance. I was doing stand-up (or barking to get an audience for stand-up), improv, taking a writing workshop, coaching improv, doing an open mic. If I ever found myself at home on a weeknight, it felt strange.

There were times that I wished I didn’t have to got out. But I chose to go out anyway. I rarely skipped anything. And now here I am without that. At first I did the zoom shows (some people hated them, I was fine with them), then those slowed to a trickle. Now I’m just a storyteller and improviser who’s out of practice.

I haven’t been writing. I haven’t had anything to write about the pandemic. I also usually share my writing on social media and during the pandemic and I came to really hate social media. There was so much virtue signaling and mask shaming. I can’t tell if it was more than usual or if it was taking up more of my attention because it was one of the few windows I had into other people for a couple of years. But writing and then sharing that writing felt a bit like wading into a cesspool.

But more importantly who am I to write during everything that happened in the pandemic? George Floyd’s death and the subsequent protests and Kyle Rittenhouse and January 6th? I don’t have anything to say about any of it that you don’t already know or could hear stated better somewhere else by someone else.

So without these creative outlets, who am I? I’ve long given up the idea of making a living at writing or performing. I’ll always have to have a day job. But my conception of myself as a creative person was my identity. And now I’m not that person.

Or maybe it was all bullshit. Maybe I was just spinning my wheels, staying busy without progressing. I was out every night, sure, but was a moving forward? Now, I can either try to return to what I was or perhaps let it all go and search for something new. But, deep down, I’m disappointed in myself. I always thought I was an urban sophisticate, turns out I’m just a pile of beer cans and reruns.

I don’t really know what I’m doing with myself anymore besides hunting for dopamine hits. I watch stuff that I used to love but have watched enough times to turn them into white noise. In the before times I thought, “wouldn’t it be great if, instead of going to work, I could just throw on whatever and walk to my living room without showering?” As the Chinese curse goes: may you get what you wish for.

Look, I haven’t been completely useless. I get out of bed. I walk my dog. I make my bed. I wash my dishes. A low bar, sure, but one it’s important to clear. I ran 5 half marathons and one full one. I told a couple of memorable stories on RISK! and The Volume Knob. I was on The Pursuit of Perfectness.

At 45 I’ll be lucky if this is halfway. What now? Get back into it? Quit it all? I’ve never been particularly ambitious. Or maybe the price of ambition always seemed too high. Somewhere between writing the great American novel and becoming a hermit, there has to be a place for me.

For now I think I’d like to claw my way back. It’s why I’m writing this. I don’t know if my comedy, improv, storytelling, and writing is who I am or if it’s just something I do to distract me. At this point, I don’t care. All I know is that I feel better when I practice these things for their own sake.