I’ve heard it said a couple of times that being forced to shelter-in-place put an end to fear of missing out. Before this all started, fear of missing out drove us to overcommit and overextend ourselves, to say yes to things when we really wanted to say no, and to stay out longer than we should have. When we did find ourselves at home, fear of being left out drove us to scroll through tagged photos on Instagram and Facebook with knots in our stomachs, and swirling thoughts like, “What was I doing that weekend” and “Why didn’t I know about this?” Now that are our feeds are filled with our immediately family members, at-home graduation, birthday, and anniversary parties, and endless loaves of bread, it’s clear there’s not much going on to be jealous of.
Or is there?
Perhaps I suffer from a more virulent strain of FOMO that everybody else, stemming from a more deeply-rooted insecurity, but I don’t have to look too hard for signs of life carrying on without me.
The underground dinner parties for the DC elite were easy to dismiss; that was never my world and, frankly, I ate up the backlash against people flaunting their privilege in the early days of the pandemic with a healthy side of schadenfreude.
An early suggestion that parents cope with the no playdates guidance by picking a “best friend family” stung a little. There are lots of families with young kids in our area, but we’re no one’s best friend. As my daughter’s budding social life died on the vine, kids from her class reported during Monday Zoom calls that they’d spent the weekend playing with “just one” friend. We tended the hurt with salve we picked up up on the moral high ground and reassurance that this was temporary.
The first time I video chatted my family out west and found my siblings and parents and nephews all together in one place I hung up the phone and cried. They were all outside, all properly socially distanced around the pool, around the firepit. They weren’t doing anything wrong, but they were together and I was starting to come apart.
At the park, I play with my daughter near but not exactly with other families who are less vigilant about keeping their kids apart. Like all kids, my daughter has a violent sense of justice. Usually I try to tamp it down, complicate her view of the world, model empathy and open-mindedness, remind her that we live life in our own lane. Other days, I let her screams of “WHY AREN’T THEY SOCIAL DISTANCING!” go unanswered because I’m as pissed as she is.
In the house, I hear voices drift in from outside, peek out the window and spy my neighbors barbecuing with friends. The good smells good but what I really crave is the conversation.
I attend virtual church with 150+ other people and virtual AA meetings with people who may or may not know my face and my name, but I have yet to be invited to a virtual happy hour.
I know I’m not really missing out. I know we’re all struggling differently, even the people who seem to be taking this all in stride. I know I have a lot and that there are a lot of people who look at the pictures I take and the words that I write about my life and they ache, because they want what I have.
I’m just lonely.
Sober Mormon 