How to Navigate Getting Closer Again:
Has “Six Feet” Become Comfortable?
The physical distance of the last year has not been easy. We miss hugs. We miss contact. We miss thoughtlessly passing our neighbors on the street. We miss sitting close to one another on the train in the morning. The idea of getting to be close again one day, gradually, as we hope to see the threat of Covid-19 retreating, brings joyful tears to our eyes. Our psyches, however, don’t always align with our ideas. How we think we should react to getting closer to one another may differ from our real feelings and experiences.
Deep in the recesses of our brains, we are actually now quite comfortable with some distance from our fellow humans. Distance feels safe. Our brain has adapted to our behavior. Stand six feet away from another human long enough and it signals a new brain boundary. Humans experience some discomfort or even anger when our personal space gets encroached upon. Our brains now have expanded the understanding of our personal space. While before the pandemic, it might be someone inches away from you, now it is… “six feet” to be exact. We are hardwired neurologically to protect our space, and our new normal has actually changed that hardwiring! Much like changing the spacing on a document, our brain has changed our personal spacing. The good news is that our brains will naturally rewire in time as our environment becomes virally safer.
The psychological changes that our distance has created may be more challenging to recalibrate. One of the most difficult aspects of the past year has been the experience of isolation and loneliness. Being less connected to family and friends has been a source of great stress and unhappiness. It would seem obvious that coming together again would be a source of great relief and joy. And it is. But, paradoxically, we are also feeling anxiety around reconnecting. The pandemic restrictions provided us with instant boundaries. We didn’t need to assert them ourselves. Essentially, there was no “saying no” to people, activities, or social gatherings. The virus served as a relational and psychological boundary. We are moving towards needing to set our own boundaries again. And, boundary setting can be difficult and emotionally painful.
In the past year, I have shared my writing and started my own counseling practice. I found a freedom to listen in deeply to myself when boundaries on my time and space were rigidly placed by the stay-at-home orders. If I’m truthful, I don’t know that I would have ever taken the alone time that I have had over the past year, even though I have craved it my entire life. For as long as I can remember, I have fantasized about living in a cabin alone for a period of time and just writing, hiking, and cooking. What I never realized was that I was truly just craving boundaries… boundaries for my own sake, just for me. On a deep level, I was always asking the question, “Who am I to get to live the life that I truly desire?”
I realize that my introverted fantasies are not universal. Many of us are extroverted, and most of us need community to feel safe and supported. And yet, when we think about “moving back to normal” in our communities, many people are feeling a sense of unease. In the past year, there has been a tremendous loss of life, loss of security, and a racial reckoning and movement. Resultantly, a collective fear exists that normalization might mean a glossing over of these enormous and powerful shifts. Of course, it is only with significant privilege that one is even able to “gloss over” loss and inequity. And yet, we all have a tendency to push down difficult feelings and experiences. Our communities are a place to feel held, and it feels scary to enter a community that might not have the capacity to honor so much pain and loss. As an example, if you are a person who has always abhorred small talk, imagine small talk now. Small talk after this year threatens to feel like a truck rolling over your heart and soul. Hyperbole aside, it is important to acknowledge that there will be significant adjustments needed to find our way back to one another.
Maybe we start reentry by admitting that “six feet” feels comfortable. After the weirdest year in most of our lives, we are different, we have changed. Navigating getting closer again may just require deep honoring of who we have become. We will all experience the shift towards one another differently. Knowing the possible challenge that it presents allows for us to be more graceful in our experience. Hopefully, we can give others grace to shift back towards us in their own unique ways as well.