Happy, but lonely

Wiesław Myśliwski, a contemporary writer, said during an interview: "In the modern world, it is clearly visible how relationships have broken up, how social life is disappearing, how we have no time for anything, how we have stopped understanding what it means to meet with a person. We have stopped understanding that it is not the same as communicating by phone, text messages, etc. These are just technical agreements . This loneliness is very visible today. Everyone complains about it." It will become especially visible, more pronounced than in previous years, during the upcoming holidays. It is hard to get rid of the thought that social distance - a consequence of the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus - is a symbolic culmination of building distance on the communication and emotional level. It is not noticed by those who do not feel its effects on their own skin. Perhaps - for a while.

Loneliness often finds us at the end of our lives. Sometimes, it is accompanied by deprivation. While some people complain about getting another pair of socks as a gift or that this year's ugly Xmas sweater is way too ugly , others dream about these socks, about this warm coat. Above all, however, they want to be remembered. And this is something obvious, something that every year, through the media, charities, volunteers and carers of the needy direct our attention. Except that we did not want to see or remember. We have gone so far in our indifference and rebellion against old age that almost no one has noticed the cruelty of the message: "Don't worry about the coronavirus. It only kills the elderly and sick."

And what about the loneliness of the “young and able”? Among them will also be those who spent and will spend Christmas alone – these are people who do not maintain contact with their family, cannot find their way in social situations, struggle with depression or a sense of exclusion. So far, during the holiday season, the aforementioned charities, associations, trade unions and institutions such as universities of the third age have invited older and younger, poor and more affluent lonely people to holiday meetings and trips. This year, none of these meetings will take place. What is more, those who will not be able to return to their country or meet up with friends and family due to health conditions, quarantine or restrictions will join the previous group of alienated people. Probably never before has the percentage of lonely and abandoned people been so high.

Three years ago, 35% of Poles declared that they would invite a lonely or poor person to the Christmas Eve table. In a 2019 study, 29% of us said so*. How hospitable will we be in 2021 or 2022, after many months of isolation, taught a new kind of social distrust, but also full of longing for normality, which for many comes down to casually hugging others? We will have to wait a long time for "real meetings", such as Myśliwski had in mind (primarily because we have to learn them again). However, a helping hand can also be extended from a safe distance, even if this year, on a scale wider than Christmas Eve spent with 5 people, we are left with "technical agreements". In the current circumstances, they do not seem devoid of tenderness. After all, there is no lack of tenderness in a phone conversation with grandparents or a video conference with a divorced friend, and certainly not in a letter to a stranger in a nursing home or in a small gift left on the doormat for a neighbor who lives alone. Even when you are the one who needs company.

Well, what to do if you have to spend Christmas alone due to coronavirus, perhaps for the first time in your life? First of all, if you like this "magical atmosphere", do not give it up under any circumstances. Bake gingerbread cookies, decorate the tree, turn on your favorite Christmas playlist (we recommend the one from Your KAYA !) or a movie, and then give yourself the best gift of your life with devotion. And, if you can (and want to), stay in constant contact with your loved ones! Remember also that loneliness does not always have to be harmful to everyone, even at Christmas, because for some, a holiday is to get enough sleep, find time to read a book, calm down, reflect, and gain strength for new things. As they say: sometimes we simply need to be alone. And the pandemic, nomen omen, creates the perfect conditions for this. What's better, it makes us realize how important moments spent with others are to us, and that a certain percentage of us call their painful absence not quarantine, but everyday life.

And so we have reached the main source of comfort, although it is as bitter as the entire past year – this time no one is privileged (well, maybe apart from extreme introverts who do not like family gatherings). This time most of us will feel a lack. No hug from a beloved grandmother whom you do not want to expose, no teasing from a brother who had to stay abroad, no company snoops, which are not for everyone a pleasure, no meetings with friends who are like family to you. However, with the ghastly egalitarian effects of the pandemic, which in a clear way materializes social moods and problems, I associate my hope that when we defeat the disease called COVID-19, we will deal with another plague – indifference.