Usually I would be writing something more focused on football but in these last two years I’ve only played half a season. Not by choice, not because of injury, but because of a certain interruption that none of us saw coming. There are many stories to come from this time but here’s a little taste of mine.
I realised I hadn’t smiled in a while. Like really smiled. You know that feeling you get when something instantly makes you feel uncontrollably happy and calm. Like when you finish an exhausting day of work and you finally lie down on your bed, or when your best mate scores a goal, and you’re the first person to run and hug them. Or maybe when you finish a great novel or see your mum for the first time in 12 months. You know that feeling right, that one of just pure joy? Well, I realised I hadn’t felt that in a while. I mean I’d forced it, time and time again, day after day, but not really felt it. I’d felt my mouth push my cheeks so hard they’d almost touch the corners of my eyes, but not in a natural way. Not without being prompted.
COVID. It doesn’t need an introduction. If I stopped a 3-year-old on the street they’d be able to define it as ‘the virus’. They’d understand, even if not to the full degree, that it’s impacted their life and taken things away from them that are important. Maybe to a child that thing is just a playground, but still, it is important to them.
We all have different opinions on how things should have been and should continue to be done. We all have our own version of the new normal. We all feel one way or another about political decisions and vaccination mandates. And we all have a story to tell, one of adjustment and one of survival… in whatever shape or form that may come. For some of us there was fortunate freedom, for some of us there were long lockdowns, for others there was heartbreak and rejection into a place once called home, and for others there was deep sadness without proper goodbyes.
For me, it was lockdowns. Six, to be exact. And somewhere along the way I forgot how to smile. It wasn’t that I felt sad all the time, I didn’t. Obviously, I had my moments as so many others around the world did. I missed my family, I missed playing football, I missed going to the beach, I missed just sitting in the park on sunny days and I missed my home, but those feelings would usually subside quickly enough as I found ways to be grateful for the things I did have. I constantly reminded myself that the situation I was in was one of good health, a stable income and a household full of friends. Something so many people didn’t have throughout this pandemic.
So, no it wasn’t that I was sad. It was that I almost felt robotic. And when you are a robot, repeating the same routine day after day you often forget to smile. I find it hard to put into words exactly how I felt. Bored is probably a good way to describe it. Not because I didn’t have anything to do. I did. I was working full time, studying part time and in my free time I was training hard for whenever football returned. It’s probably a funny concept to think that I was busy, in a time of not much going on. Especially when I was living in a state classed as the most locked down city in the world, full of travel circumferences and curfews, but I was. Busy in a way that I was constantly doing things, just not ever in a spontaneous or new way.
I think it was the repetition of the same places, with the same people, at the same times. Over and over again. I think it was the uncertainty. The longer the lockdowns continued the less I started looking forward to things, and the more I started just going through the motions. I started functioning in a way I’d probably call ‘automatic mode’. Things just happened because that’s the same way it’d happened for months. In a way, I wasn’t even really thinking, I didn’t need to switch on and be alert. I didn’t look around me and I didn’t take notice of the things that could have made me smile, the little things. It was a blankness of not really feeling much at all, a transition I didn’t even feel or see happening.
This robotic feeling came unravelled recently. And it wasn’t until I felt that feeling. That feeling of pure happiness. That feeling of a real smile. It wasn’t until then, that I realised how numb I’d felt. How had I let myself reach a point where this feeling of happiness was so rare and new? How had I forgotten what it felt like to do something as simple as smile?
I got to cuddle one of my close friends’ babies for the first time. He was almost 6 months old by this stage, and on that day we met outside for a picnic and I remember that feeling of excitement as I parked my car. I had those little butterflies in my stomach, (as cliche as that may sound) and I couldn’t get out quickly enough to run to where my friend was sitting. It was a warm Friday night and I had tears in my eyes and a big smile on my face when I reached to pick him up. Instantly I realised this was what I’d missed. I hadn’t even noticed that it had been absent from my life. But I missed experiencing something for the first time. I missed that feeling you get when you breathe in and just feel at home. I missed taking notice of the things that made me happy.
Whilst driving home, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. It’s no secret that I love babies (just as long as they aren’t my own) so it’s usually pretty easy for them to instantly improve my mood. But on this particular day it meant much more than that. And little Angus will never know the impact he had on me. I don’t have enough friends with new babies to cuddle everyday but I do have a whole big, wide open world around me with so many colours and people and sounds that are so easily accessible. I was now able to recognise that I have control of the way I feel and sometimes that may take a bit of effort. If I open my eyes and allow myself to feel something in each moment then life is full of joy. Even throughout the struggles.
It’s been a hard two years. So bloody hard in so many ways, for so many people. But in a bittersweet kind of way I look back feeling somewhat quite thankful for living in Melbourne throughout all of this. Because without all the lockdowns and restrictions and times of homesickness and uncertainty, I wouldn’t have grown as a person, and I wouldn’t have been reminded to find reasons to smile. That day I remembered how to smile, a genuine smile. One that makes me feel warm and calm and at home. Today I found a reason to do it again. And tomorrow I’ll try to do the same.
You might have lived through a similar experience or you may have lived through a very different one. But whatever you are going through, now or in the future, this is a reminder to find the little (or big) joys in all of the struggles. Find ways to have those small wins. Those small smiles or huge grins. And even if you’re struggling to smile, maybe there’s a way you can find your inner child and look around for beauty in the simple, spontaneous, everyday occurrences.
-Written by Addy
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We love this podcast episode from The Science of Happiness: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3O0pTtbeg2yascKPLGVrTx?si=TiTMmdk8R8KKfHIQfzAs-g
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