No one really knew what we were in for, the toll it would take, the simple pleasures that would be lost when the novel coronavirus pandemic will force a lockdown across the nation. This week, it will be a year since I took a deep breath outside without a mask, a year since I went out to movies with my loved ones, a year since I lost my fearlessness and a year since things were normal.

At first, I couldn’t wrap my head around the announcement made by our Prime Minister. It raised a thousand questions in my head, how can they restrict our movement, how can they tell us what we can or cannot do? The view of the empty streets felt so eerie. Whenever I turn back, it would just feel like something or in fact everything was missing. Looking at an empty street on a sunny day in May just didn’t feel right.

But as we got in deep, I could see the meaning of the announcement, the aim of implementing stricter guidelines day by day. They were to get the rouge pandemic under control. It was the way the world was going to be for a while now. There I got two options in front of me, either I can sulk that I am not free to do this or that, or I could enjoy the peace it brought with itself. But even that peace came with a pinch of fear which continuously forced me to use sanitizer thrice every hour. 

After this realisation, I started looking at the pandemic in a whole different way. I liked that things in the world had slowed down. I observed that our lives were no longer on a hamster wheel as it used to be pre-lockdown. A continuous routine with layed down timings for everything. As in we had forgotten how to move around in the world without schedules. I believe it wasn’t just me, but almost everyone, who felt some kind of relief from their regular mundane lives when the lockdown hit. We finally started to live in a moment as our schedules were whipped clear.

I remember talking to a friend on an abnormal Monday, nowhere to go, nothing to do, just two friends treating the first day of the week as the last. “All the things we took for granted,” he said. These words kept ringing in my ears as a reminder of life. 

“How long has it been? Since I picked up a novel and got lost in the world of fiction,” I asked myself. As we grow, we bury our hobbies, what makes us happy, under the rug. Professional and personal responsibility take a higher toll on our lives. Many find themselves lost in this rut and lose touch with their creativity.

In lockdown, I got an opportunity to reconnect with my inner self. I had the much-needed time to reconnect with my inner self and pursue my creativity. As we scroll through our social media amid the lockdown, the posts exhibit creativity at its best. While some netizens are sharing posts of themselves cooking, others are using the platform to showcase their dancing skill.

What everyone at the end of the day is doing is reconnecting with their creative self. Additionally, individuals also felt connected with nature. But what was an interesting to find out in the pandemic was that the drivers of satisfaction for everybody’s life remained the same- it was Passion.