Journal Entry #1: Groundhog Day
“How was your weekend?”
“Such a long week and it’s only Tuesday”
“Hump day, you know how it is”
“Well it’s Friday tomorrow, so that’s something to look forward to”
“Any plans for the weekend?”
Though universally derided, small talk was an avoidable part of life prior to the pandemic. The only times it bubbles up nowadays are in those moments before a small virtual meeting starts, to fill the silence among the unlucky few who have electronically congregated too early.
The banality of small talk was on full display when I accidentally asked a colleague what he got up to on his weekend. Thankfully, he automatically replied “Not much, you?” before we realized the absurdity of the situation and shared a chuckle. In the moments prior to our manager joining the call, he made a comment about how it felt like Groundhog Day, a term here italicized because I understood it to refer to the cult classic about Bill Murray reliving February the 2nd repeatedly, not the rodent-watching tradition taking place the next day.
The theft of Monday and Friday small talk is trivial when compared to the means through which COVID-19 has committed this robbery. As my astute colleague implied, we can no longer differentiate days from one another. Similar to the difficulty of discerning day of week halfway into a stay at an all-inclusive resort, but without margaritas or sun, especially up here in the north.
So what would you do? What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same? In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray is initially in complete denial of his condition, and wants out: he sees psychologists and tries to physically leave the town. I’m not going to parallel this to my lock-down behaviour because that would be self-incriminating. After accepting his situation however, Bill Murray tries to make the most of it, robbing banks, seducing women, and binge eating without any consequence.
Granted, I’m not stuck in a time loop, and there are consequences to my actions, but there were also immediate gains. Not commuting three hours meant I could now schedule meals, workouts, and adequate sleep every day. Not having a manager looking over my shoulder meant I could watch YouTube while doing menial spreadsheet work. Not being allowed to see friends meant had a guilt-free opportunity to play video games. Not leaving the house meant I didn’t have to style my hair, or later, cut it. It wasn’t ideal, but I was making the most of it and enjoying myself. It was okay. We were in a global pandemic after all, and things would go back to normal soon enough.
After enjoying all that the town of Punxsutawney had to offer, Bill Murray returns to a state of ennui, which quickly turns into despair as he realizes that he might be stuck in this loop for all of eternity. The movie takes a darker twist as he begins searching for more ways to leave the time loop, resorting to creative methods of suicide without much avail.
Just as quickly as Bill Murray’s montage of outlandish debauchery ended, I also found myself in a new listless mood. Not quite as bad, since the lock-down and pandemic are both slated to end eventually, though every time we get close, it seems to get pushed back. A move downtown a few months ago changed the monotonous pace a little, but as I settled down into my new routine, the ennui set in again.
The days I go into the office notwithstanding, every day does seem like the same. After waking up, I stretch, eat, work, eat, and work. In the evening, I perform some combination of exercising, showering, eating, chatting with friends, watch a movie, and doomscroll on social media, some with much more frequency than others, but none requiring too much mental capacity. As the night winds down, it occurs to me how little I have done of substance in the day, and I strive to stay awake a little longer in search of that elusive gratification. It’s futile because I’m too fatigued, and counterproductive because I wake up tired the next day to the same thing all over again.
What can we learn from Groundhog Day? Bill Murray eventually leaves his time loop by becoming the best version of himself. He uses his unlimited days to learn French, piano, and ice sculpting, and to help the people using his omniscience. When he has achieved his perfect day by helping all the people he could, ending by winning the girl and waking beside her the next morning, he escapes the time loop and exclaims that “Today, is tomorrow”.
Thankfully, we’re not living in Groundhog Day. This pandemic will end eventually, and there’s no need to push ourselves to be productive during this time, as we are so constantly reminded. Soon, we can take back our weekends, return to our lives, and go back to having conversations around the water cooler.
I have a friend named L, who moved to Vancouver a decade ago, and with whom I periodically exchanged stories, catching up. She was in school for longer than I was, and as I graduated to join the workforce, receiving the question “So, what’s new with you?” became increasingly uncomfortable.
I was faced with two options: spin a recent trip or party into a thrilling experience, or update her on the prosaic developments at work. The third option was to admit that there was nothing new going on in my life, though it didn’t occur to me that was the root of my discomfort until a few months ago. Incidentally, that was when she admitted to me that there wasn’t anything new with her life since we last chatted, thanks to the pandemic.
Just as Groundhog Day is really a story about a jaded and sarcastic news anchor who is able to find fulfillment in even the most ordinary day repeated for a few years, perhaps this weariness I’m afflicted by is really the result of a more serious problem. What happens once the pandemic ends?
After a few weeks of long overdue celebration and substance abuse, life will go back to normal, as everyone is hoping for. I’ll go back to spending my weekdays thinking about the weekend, and spending my weekends trying to forget about the weekdays, in a fashion that sounds oddly similar to my days now, except on week-long cycles. A time when Friday and Monday small talk about the weekend, the most exciting part of the week, is still just small talk.
The difference between then and now is that there’s less room for introspection when all the time is occupied by general busyness. There’s no chance to consider what the next few years of my life will look like when I’m late for a party. It seems vastly inappropriate to wonder if I’m happy when we’re celebrating someone’s birthday. Opportunities to consider long-term gratification are limited when there is fun to be had now and work to be done tomorrow.
In a sense, perhaps the pandemic has been good for me. I recognize that I am speaking from a place of extreme privilege, but more time alone inside of my head has allowed some feelings to arise, and recognize that these feelings aren’t just the result of a lock-down. Consistent mealtimes and bedtimes certainly didn’t hurt, though reflection and writing are perhaps my biggest takeaways. Are things that will make me happy in the future different from the things that will make me happy right now? Are the things that will make me happy tomorrow the same things that I’m doing today?
So what would you do? If you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, what would you do to change that? I don’t have the answers or even my answers right now, but I hope that like Bill Murray, once I’m out of lock-down, I’ll be ready. At the very least, I’ll have an answer when L asks “So what’s up with you?”
With this goal in mind, I’ll have a series weekly posts entitled “Journal Entries”. I acknowledge that much of what I write is written in first person and isn’t overly thesis driven, much like journal entries are, but it sounds a bit less conceited than “Introspections”, the other working name. Plus, A said that my pieces have to be longer if I wanted to achieve SSC status, or ACT as the blog is called nowadays. I have a ideal for next week already, but I don’t except that I’ll be able to have these sort of personal ruminations every week, so I’ll be splicing in some of my usual lukewarm takes.
