Friends who live together, do lockdown together

When you think about moving in with your friends, there are a lot of questions that go through your mind. ‘Will they be as tidy as me?’, ‘Will we be in each other’s space too much?’, ‘Will they get sick of me?’. Never once does the thought of how you would cope in a global pandemic cross your mind…well not until now. 

Like many other students, I decided to leave university-run accommodation at the start of national lockdown last year and to move in with one of my closest friends. This was something that had been in the pipeline for months prior to the pandemic, and Covid-19 was not going to stop our plans. To think that a whole year has passed by and we are still able to enjoy each other’s company is a huge accomplishment. 

Don’t get me wrong, there have been equal emotional breakdowns to fits of laughter, but I would not have had it any other way. The movie nights, the lockdown birthdays, the singing and dancing, the ‘mornings after the night before’, all of these things gained a completely different meaning this year, and they will be the memories that we get to look back on in forty years. 

Being around someone of a similar age made the past year so much easier, as we were both in the same situation in terms of employment and university. This meant we could talk about it when we needed to, and completely shut off from it the rest of the time. As much as we were still isolated, it made the feelings of loneliness slightly more bearable and brought some normality to everyday life. 

The past 12 months have been a bit of a whirlwind. I went from working with my best friend, to living with him, to then living and working together, but we made it work. I know that I have been extremely lucky to be in this position and not everyone has had it as easy. Everyone has faced their own challenges over the last year, but there is no denying that there has been some good in the bad. 

However, this was not the situation that many people found themselves in. As lockdown in the UK went on, more and more people became frustrated with the uncertainty of when we would be released from it, and inevitably isolated again a matter of months later. By December 2020, over half of the population felt anxious or worried about the pandemic, with 66% of students feeling extremely lonely. Upon doing my own research, I found that over half of those students who have felt lonely during lockdown do not think their place of residence and who they were isolating with, would have had an impact on how they were feeling. 

After speaking with other students of a similar age to myself, it became clear that 73% of them chose to move back in with their parents for the duration of lockdown for ease. There were a multitude of challenges that came with this, such as the student rent scandal, as for those who were already tied down to contracts for the next academic year, they found themselves in a difficult position, as they were still expected to pay rent for a property that they were not living in. 

The feelings of angst and unpredictability have been the hardest to deal with and this was detectable when talking to my peers. “I feel really lonely, although I’m surrounded by family. I lost my independent life as a student and feel as I’m back to my 15-year-old self.” This seems to be the case for a lot of students, that the sense of independence and individuality has been ripped away from them, in some of the most important years of their lives. 

The same feelings of loneliness and isolation have been felt around the world this year and I do not think those words do our emotions enough justice. They do not hold the same weight as one plain word, ‘lockdown’, which before 2020 did not have the same connotations that it does now. There is not one specific way to describe the past year but the one word that succinctly explains it is simply ‘lockdown’.

Feature image by Charlotte Griffin