Five Years On

Last week marked the incomprehensible milestone of five years since the UK went into lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not to sound like a broken record or like everybody else that is still mildly traumatised by that period, but I really can’t believe five years has passed. It feels like yesterday and another lifetime, all at once.

Lockdown was difficult for everybody in different ways and, for me, it changed me irrevocably. Not only did I end a long-term relationship after realising that it’d been completely unhealthy and abusive in many ways, I also left a long-term job after being pushed to my limits. I learned to grow vegetables. I took 28 online Barre classes. I stepped into my activist era – like lots of us rightly did – and I faced some of the worst racism I’d encountered in all my life, quite literally on my doorstep.

On reflection, it was the racial uprisings all around the world that sort of impacted me the most. The murder of George Floyd continues to weigh heavily on my mind, as do the countless homicides since that day. While we may have made small motions forwards, I continue to feel baffled at how we as a society have simply carried on since. For me, that extends to the atrocities committed in Palestine. Offline, I have ceaselessly lobbied for a peaceful ceasefire and even some small acknowledgment of this current genocide. It has been painful and tiring, but necessary work for me. Online, well, online I am tired.

Five years ago, I managed to ‘go viral’, as the kids say, for simply sharing a Tweet (lol) about how my family’s business had had zero customers in the weeks leading to lockdown, only a few snide comments about how our Chinese takeaway food may have the virus in it. 20 million views, six radio spot and podcast appearances, one turned-down book deal offer, and many traumatised months later, I’m a changed person. I will never be who I was then, and I’m certain that that’s why I’ve shown up in varied, unreliable ways on this blog ever since. You see, with sharing a personal anecdote that accidentally reaches a huge audience comes impossible vulnerability and exposure. While I’m grateful for the platforms I was given to talk about our experience and even spotlight the Chinese takeaways of the UK, I feel like a failure. I wrote a book and then turned down the only deal I snagged. I watched as my talented peers wrote books similar to mine, rightfully topping charts and enjoying book tours, while I started therapy and got even more insular. I became petrified of being seen by others and withdrew as I became spotlighted as one of very few British-Chinese content creators, in the wake of influencers being called out for their racist behaviours. For me, this negative sphere was no place for me. Eventually, I rebuilt my focus by continuing to write about life’s small joys and plunging myself deeper into fictional worlds. It’s been nice.

And yet a part of me is still sad. Five years on, I fear that little has changed except me. I am quietly confident, yes, but I am sad that I waved goodbye to the more naive version of myself without even knowing. I am fearlessly vocal about social issues, yes, but I am sad that it’s meant I’ve lost acquaintances along the way who simply weren’t on the same page as me. I am happy, yes, but I am wistful for might have been.

Anyway, five years on, I’m finding my feet again with writing publicly and writing meaningfully. I may never open my finished creative non-fiction manuscript again, but I am beyond thrilled that I have something new in the works instead.

Five years on.

What a ride, eh?