March 2025 marks five years since Covid-19 shut down the world. It seems almost ridiculous that it’s been so long already but at the same time, it feels like it hasn’t been long enough. I still feel deeply affected by the initial lockdown in Paris.
When it happened I was finishing up the last semester of my master’s degree in global communications.
At the beginning of the program in 2019 one of my professors said something along the lines of how we have too many choices today, and everything holds an enormous risk, because a worldwide disaster could happen at any moment.
At the time I was like, “Why would he say something like that?!” But after getting to know him better I think he is a little more tuned into the vibes of the world than most of us are.
Going into 2020 was so optimistic at first right? The “Roaring 20s”, everyone claiming it was their year.
With my university I had spent Christmas and New Year’s in India, came back to Paris for a few weeks only to turn around and spend the middle of February in India again. (Both trips were associated with classes I was taking)
I came back from that double dose of India feeling so good. Healed from whatever I was upset about in 2018 and 2019, ready to graduate from the master’s program and start working in France as a communications professional. I remember thinking to myself, “I hope I can find a job where I get to work from home sometimes”. Hahahaha. I have since almost exclusively worked from home.
In the second week of March 2020, our professors had us experiment with Microsoft Teams just in case of a two week lockdown.
Remember the idea of a two week lockdown to “Stop the spread”?
That Friday we were informed our university would close and classes would be online for two weeks. I went out with three classmates for drinks we had planned before the announcement. While we were out I suggested we take a quick video of our predictions of what would happen.
Isabelle said she thought the lockdown would continue through June. Then she backtracked and said maybe just until the end of April. Watching the video again now I wonder if she knew something she wasn’t sharing with us that made her initially predict June.
Stella said she thought it would really only be two weeks because everything being closed like that meant that money was being lost and the economy would not be able to handle it and so they would “figure it out”.
Nicole said she thought maybe the lockdown would last until mid-April.
And then they turned the camera on me, and I said I agreed with Isabelle, that it would go way longer, but I hoped it wouldn’t because I didn’t like the idea of online class, but that I had a really weird feeling that I didn’t want to believe.
This was the day before President Macron announced the lockdown in France. It’s so strange now to see us there together making predictions. We were all wrong. We couldn’t even comprehend what was coming.
The next day, Saturday, I have a photo of me with a different group of friends, hanging out at our usual spot celebrating our friend Mohammed’s birthday.
While we were out together someone mentioned that all bars and restaurants were going to close at midnight that night, for two weeks.
We still hadn’t fully grasped the severity of the situation, and two weeks seemed like a reasonable amount of time to sacrifice to stop the spread of a deadly disease. It was still kind of unbelievable that everything would be shut down for so long, given the strong cafe and restaurant culture here.
I left the party to stop by another restaurant I frequented to say “See you soon” to the servers. I used to see them more than anyone else because I spent so much time writing papers there.
It was those casual relationships I ended up missing the most during lockdown, because they were such a big part of my every day until they weren’t. We weren’t close enough to keep in touch in the same way I did with friends and family.
I started a blog, the Corona Chronicles, the very next day in an attempt to build something while I had the time. I knew I would need some kind of portfolio to find work after graduation and I thought this would be a good way to show off my writing skills. Maybe get into journalism.
But after a couple of months I couldn’t keep up with it. I was depressed over the lack of physical human interaction and started doubting my writing skills.
When I looked back at it I realized it was pretty good. I should have continued, and I regret that I didn’t. Maybe if I hadn’t been so in my head I would be further along with my writing career now.
During the master’s program I lived in a 9 meter squared apartment with a shared toilet in the hallway. A proper chambre de bonne. It was teeny tiny but only cost 450 euros a month. Perfect for a grad student who spent most of the time in cafes and traveling. Before the pandemic I was only there to sleep.
When the lockdown hit, I was terrified. I felt like a rat in a cage. I leaned into my bad habits, and spent most days in a THC induced haze consumed by the news, completely alone, in and out of sleep.
I still showed up to class online, but I pushed all my assignments to the next semester. I just couldn’t deal. I was overwhelmed in a way I never have been before. It was not my best time.
I remember thinking that maybe thanks to this crisis everyone would wake up, realize how much we all need community, and that once we were all allowed back outside, no one would take their friends and family for granted again.
Ahahahaha the wishful thinking was at an all time high.
I was jealous of everyone who was able to use that precious time to spend with their families, but I didn’t DARE go back to the US, because my parents are over 60, and I was terrified of catching Covid on the plane and accidentally killing one of them. That and I knew my dad wasn’t taking the threat as seriously as my mom and I were.
I could foresee the situation being way less than ideal. So I stayed isolated in Paris angry that I was missing out on such a great opportunity to spend time with my mom and explore new skills together because of where I was.
Of course, that spring was the most beautiful, perfect weather we’ve had in Paris in all the nine years I’ve lived here. All I could do was watch the birds enjoying it from my window. Thankfully, at least I had an excellent view. It was the only good thing about that apartment other than the cheap rent.
I spent March, April, and May hanging out of my window taking panoramic photos, clapping for the healthcare workers at 7pm, and watching rain storms with the kind of attention one only has when they have nowhere else to be.
My birthday is in the first week of April, so I spent my 33rd birthday alone, treating myself to a meal from Uber Eats and a slice of cake from the store to celebrate, happy it was raining that day so at least I didn’t feel sad about missing good weather.
I watched a lot of movies and shows on my laptop. Obviously one of the first things I watched was “Contagion,” which if you don’t know is a movie from 2011 about a global pandemic. I think even in the movie it was called some kind of coronavirus.
If you think about it, that lets you know people knew this sort of thing was possible for a long time before it actually happened. Personally, I don’t believe any of the conspiracy theories. The threat was always there to those who were paying attention.
I also watched some British show called “Years and Years” that jumped forward five years every episode and made all sorts of crazy predictions, including the idea of teenagers wanting to become “trans-human” and have the internet implanted directly into their brains. It made me even more terrified for the future than I already was.
While I was physically alone, I wasn’t completely alone. At the very beginning of the pandemic, my mom was laid off from her job. Always the social butterfly, I knew staying home all the time would deeply affect her. Although we’d always talked often, it was during this time we began to video chat every day. A habit we still continue.
There were other people I kept in touch with too. I caught up with some old friends through Zoom dates, and made new friends from social media.
One of them was from Pakistan and another from Bangladesh. They would both show me scenery from their walks where they lived, which gave me a sense of escape, if only for a moment, from my tiny prison. In return I would show them Paris whenever I went out for my allotted one hour a day. We still haven’t met in person but I’m friends with them both to this day.
Of course my friends who stayed here in Paris checked in on me. Mohammed lived down the street and used to invite me over for dinner, but I always declined because I took social distancing very seriously.
At the beginning of the Spring 2020 semester I had started a podcast with a new friend from my university called “Snap Chat w/my Younger Self”. When the pandemic hit, I figured out how to use Anchor (now Spotify for Podcasters), and we continued the podcast over the phone throughout the lockdown. You can still find those episodes on Spotify if you look.
These are the people and things that kept me halfway sane in a time of complete confusion and fear.
A lot of that time is a blur for me, but there are some things I will never forget.
Like having to write myself a permission slip to go outside. First by hand, then later on my phone. Or how quiet Paris was. The completely empty streets, none of the hustle and bustle of one of the world’s most visited cities. The closed borders.
With no one else out, I used to go for walks at midnight down Avenue de la Bourdonnais and across Pont Alexandre III.
I lived right next to the Champs de Mars but it was blocked off with police tape. At one point, I would go out late at night to jump rope in the parking lot between my building and the park in an effort to stay fit.
I don’t think I will ever see Paris this silent ever again.
There’s no good way to wrap up a reflection like this, because like it or not we’re still dealing with the aftermath of Covid. It’s been five years but there are plenty of lessons that haven’t been fully learned or accepted. Our ways of life have been forever altered by the moment the world stood still.
Personally, I still get really offended when people are even the slightest bit sick and still going out as if nothing is wrong. I know people who suffer from long Covid and I know that it’s not “just a cold” and it hasn’t fully left us.
If I’m being completely honest, I think it could happen again and since we haven’t learned our lessons it will be worse than before. But I hope not.
Do you have any reflections from the lockdown? Did you even lock down where you were? Leave a comment about your experience. I would love to know.
Doux Comme Miel 