Has your life gotten better or worse since the Pandemic began?

[the2real4mafol]

To me it's one of them things I can't describe it as just better or worse. It's more a period of growing pains. I find change very hard to deal with.

So some good things were:
That I finally learnt that I could live life at my own pace and no one can take that away from me. The rat race finally stopped!!!
I am autistic and that has created some major barriers for employment for me so it's very cool to see flexible working arrangements take off as that will be pretty essential for me to get anywhere in the longterm.
Seeing where I am from (London) in a completely new light. It is always strange to see it quiet but was also cool at the same time.
Living life without any social expectations or judgement, As I need a lot of time to myself.
More opportunities to enjoy nature and be creative.
Significantly less distracted.
Spending much less money as everything was shut.
The pandemic also taught me to not take anything for granted and just appreciate what we do have.
I liked alot that everyone considered each other personal space.
Also I have never felt closer to friends, family and even some of my neighbours, which I never expected to happen.

I learnt a lot about myself and the world in this period and I have no interest in returning to exactly the way things were. I hope people continue to remain flexible when it comes to work and just generally recognise how important health really is.

Some bad things are:
The way Boris and others have dealt with the crisis the whole time. Pretending the problem didn't exist until it was too late has caused so much extra unnecessary deaths and suffering. I lost my grandmother in that enormous 2nd wave over Christmas and it's been very difficult ever since, but I am slowly coming out of the other end.
We're poorer as I couldn't find suitable employment the whole time and Mum was on furlough for 2 months.
End of lockdown is very overwhelming for me, everything is moving too fast!
The future is very uncertain, it will take time to rebuild.
Been pretty lonely at times.
Done nearly everything I meant to do for years in this period, which is good but I am getting bored now.
Knowing that things will never be 'normal' again for those of us who lost people to the pandemic.
Hopefully the absurdity of the pandemic has woken people up to the contradictions in the system so that will stand up for themselves. I really worry about the long term negative impacts of this time on people, especially those in my generation and younger.

So I suppose overall, it's a mixed bag for me and definitely a crazy rollercoaster. All I can say is hope we start to see some major and radical changes in society so that we don't have to go through it ever again.