Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Here's a question from an essay in The Cut, that New York Magazine section that starts to get at how warped our sense of time has become due to the pandemic, "If we slept through three years of normal life development, how old are we exactly? If we spent two to three years in isolation, connecting on Zoom, missing school or putting off important life choices, how much or how little have we aged at all?"

For so many now there's a sense that, "Our bodies might be out of sync with our minds," in the words of Katy Schneider, features editor at New York Magazine and the author of that piece in The Cut. Katy has deemed this the pandemic skip. Does it sound familiar? More than once I've heard people refer to something that occurred in 2019 as happening last year. Have you heard that? We'll spend a few minutes now reflecting on the time warp she calls the pandemic skip with Katy Schneider and your calls. Hi, Katy. Welcome to WNYC.

Katy Schneider: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, this is for you too. Who has a story about encountering the pandemic skip in some significant or jarring way? We can take your calls on the way you've navigated the sense that the pandemic has warped our perception of time. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Who has a story about yourself or maybe a perception of somebody else, how has the pandemic impacted your perception of time and aging and what do you do about that sense maybe that something is off? 212-433-9692. Call or text that number or tweet @BrianLehrer. Katy, do you want to flesh this out for us? What do you mean exactly by the pandemic skip? I quoted a few lines from your article, but tell us more.

Katy Schneider: Sure. It actually took me a while to properly articulate this thing I'd been feeling really strongly. I guess I'll just quote myself again. I wrote the strange sensation that our bodies might be a step out of sync with our minds, basically, that some of us are mentally stuck at the age we were when the pandemic started.

Brian Lehrer: How did you encounter the pandemic skip in your own life that got you thinking about this in the first place?

Katy Schneider: Yes. It really came out of my own experience. After lockdowns [unintelligible 00:02:52] I think, I assumed I'd resume the life I had before the pandemic happened. I was 27 then. I was living in this almost dorm-like situation in an apartment beneath my friend and his boyfriend. He didn't have a microwave, so he was coming up to use ours a lot. Then my boyfriend and I moved during the pandemic for more space. Because I'm immunocompromised, we were super careful and barely saw anyone. We ended up settling into this very domestic life. It felt a little bit more like we were very rapidly 35 when I was 27.

When things started returning to some version of normalcy, I guess, I thought that things would switch back and be closer to as they were before. Not only was that not the case, I think, I quickly realized that people were engaging with me differently than they had before the lockdowns. Suddenly, people were asking me about wedding venues and freezing my eggs. I realized I was in my 30s and I didn't feel like it.

Brian Lehrer: What did wedding venues and freezing your eggs have to do with it?

Katy Schneider: I was 30. That's a different phase of lifespan than late 20s. As I wrote in the article-

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I got it.

Katy Schneider: - a tight arithmetic to one's early 30s [chuckles] unfortunately and these are the things people start to inquire about when you enter your 30s as a woman.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Almost conversely, as you write in the article about some of your friends and colleagues and their experiences of the pandemic skip, one of those colleagues now 32 said she and her friends are having sort of a second youth. Want to talk about that friend and that feeling?

Katy Schneider: I think it's just a rejection of this exact thing. We missed all of this time, and we don't want to miss all of this time, so we're just going to move through it anyway as if it didn't happen or we're going to catch up on what we did miss.

Brian Lehrer: That's like when the vaccine first-- or you tell me. Is that like when the vaccine first came out in 2021? People were anticipating what was called the hot vacs summer, especially with young single people, right, which everybody who doesn't know what that actually means can figure out what that means, a hot vacs summer. Whether or not it actually worked out that way as some of the limitations of the contagion prevention came into view, but yes, we're going to party like it's 2019 because now we can again, and maybe that's back.

Katy Schneider: Right. Yes, I think there is an eagerness to make up for lost time, for sure.

Brian Lehrer: Couple of things--

Katy Schneider: But unfortunately--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. No, go ahead. Finish your thought.

Katy Schneider: What I was really focusing on was-- I think a lot of people have covered what we missed, and I think I was just trying to articulate this strange sensation that there was this skip or sleepy period that's left us feeling out of sync with our age.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Again, because the relationship to time became different.

Katy Schneider: Very.

Brian Lehrer: Another friend, now 30, told you that she and all of her friends of the same age are married and rarely go out, which you wouldn't think of as something that married 30-year-olds do. Maybe if they have little kids that can't go out so much, but that's not what this is about, right?

Katy Schneider: I think what she actually said to me was, all of a sudden, her whole social life was couples trips now. She was very startled to find that she was no longer 27 where most of her friends were single and hanging out in that way. She got out of the pandemic, and I think she said, "All of a sudden, everyone is on a couples trip, and I'm on a couples trip, and I don't know how I got there, but that's my entire single life now."

Brian Lehrer: I see, I see. Rip Van Winkle fell asleep when he was single and woke up and all his friends were married. Listener texts, "I've been referring to the same phenomenon as a time fold. The time all still exists, but relative distance from the time feels different." Someone else writes, "My pandemic skip is I'm located in New Jersey, and I've not been to visit New York City since December 2019 and January 2020." I don't know if you heard things like that, too.

Katy Schneider: Yes. I heard a lot of different things. Mostly just people seeming to feel this same strange nebulous thing that I was feeling. One person wrote that she went from 39 to 43, and spent that whole time alone in her apartment. She was mostly looking at TikTok where she was only looking at 25 and 30-year-olds. She said she developed a sort of age dysphoria almost, and that she has no idea what being in her 40s is meant to look like. All she really knows is that she's achier now.

Brian Lehrer: Andre in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Andre. You have a pandemic skip story?

Andre: Hi. Well, yes, kind of. Well, first of all, I didn't know that I had COVID cold, so to speak. When I went to my doctor, I said, "I must have had a late COVID that I didn't notice because I lost my sense of smell." He says, "No, no, that's early COVID." I didn't know that I had a cold with early COVID and-- are you there?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Andre: It turns out that I had forgotten my cold and I ascribed it to the fact that I'm in my 70th year, and in your 70th year you can forget this or that. It had nothing to do with the cold, and I still think my memory is pretty good. There you go. Early COVID can cause loss of smell.

Brian Lehrer: Absolutely. Andre, thank you very much. Well, he talks about being in a 70th year. Katy, have you noticed any generational differences in how people are coping with the pandemic skip, this time warp, or experiencing it?

Katy Schneider: There's different experiences. I talked to my friend who went from 57 to 60 and she had this strange feeling that her clothes were no longer appropriate. She was one of the earliest people I spoke to about this.

Brian Lehrer: A listener texts, "This segment really resonates with me. I was 35 when we entered the pandemic. Now I'm 39 and staring down 40. Mentally, I still feel like I'm in my mid-30s although new fine lines appearing around my eyes tell a different story. Existential crises abound." Writes that listener.

Katy Schneider: I've heard a lot of that. 'chuckles] Yes. Two people have said that to me in the last couple of days.

Brian Lehrer: How do you or your friends or colleagues or family members, anyone else who you talked about or talked with for this story deal with a sense that you need to catch up on experiences that you or they missed out during the pandemic?

Katy Schneider: I don't know if I have an answer to that but I do think it's helpful just to talk about it. I think it was something that was maybe deeply felt by some people and people didn't maybe have the language for it exactly. I do think it's helpful just to be able to express it and talk to other people about it.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. On all this anxiety, another great line from the essay, "We'll never know if any of this was the pandemic or if we're just narcissistic New York City Peter Pans or anxious maladaptive. Ha ha ha ha."

Katy Schneider: [chuckles] Yes. It's frustrating for me. I found it frustrating not to know for sure whether this was from the pandemic or just me. I think it is impossible to know and time didn't stop, but I did think the woman, my friend who was 57 when it started and came out of it 60, she said that she thought it might be impossible to age mentally without watching the people around you age. Not watching people for three years she felt like that might have had that exact effect.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Interesting though that the alternative explanation that you give is that we're just narcissistic New York City Peter Pans. Did you do any reporting that indicates that people may have experienced this differently in Omaha? You know what I mean?

Katy Schneider: I did mostly speak to New Yorkers but I assume people did experience this differently in Omaha and in Florida where the lockdown didn't last as long. I'm sure it was an entirely different experience. I really do think this article spoke to a sliver of the population and as a specific phenomenon.

Brian Lehrer: Some more interesting texts coming in. One listener writes, "I turned 21 during the pandemic, and I feel like I really missed out on those fun-going-out times in college. I'm 23 now and I'm living back at home while working a nine-to-five. I still don't go out to bars because I can't afford to get sick as a person with asthma. I skipped out on what I thought the fun parts of college could be." That one is really common, isn't it?

Katy Schneider: I think so. Yes. I think that's very common. That was close to the skip that my younger sister made. She went from 24 to 27 and she really felt like she missed out on her early 20s.

Brian Lehrer: Another listener writes, "It was a long three years of learning the truth about how selfish people I trusted were icy and it can't be skipped." I'm not sure that has to do with time but it certainly stressed our relationships with relationships, not just our relationship with time, right?

Katy Schneider: Definitely.

Brian Lehrer: Michael in Toms River, I think he's going to say that he had an opposite experience to the one we've been talking about. Hi, Michael. You're on WNYC.

Michael: Hi. Thank you. Yes, I suppose like a lot of people, I work in video production and my work completely dried up, so I went crazy and went inside and started to explore things I wanted to since I had the time, and really moved me to try different things and gave me the time to explore some new avenues were popping up like video production via Zoom became a whole new thing, which I'm still doing, and some creative ideas which I always wanted to explore, I was able to do and are now coming to fruition. In a certain way, the negative time turned into a positive time and somewhat of a springboard for me. I don't know if this has to do with anything me being 57 years old at the time, going 57 to 60, but turned that into what it became for me.

Brian Lehrer: Michael, thank you for that story. Yes, and I think that goes Katy to how varied people's experience of-- People are writing in to say, "Hey, don't forget the pandemic's not over. There's a COVID surge right now." Absolutely true. We talk about that on the show frequently, but the real isolation periods of the pandemic for people who had the luxury to be isolated certainly there were all these different experiences.

If you were a parent of young children it was one awful experience. If you were maybe in Michael's position whether he never had kids or maybe kids were out of the house by the time he was 57 and his professional situation and monetary situation was comfortable enough that he was able to use this time skip to put some creative projects into the pipeline. People's experiences varied so much depending on their stage of life and their economic circumstances.

Katy Schneider: Of course. Yes, and I think this is really like a reflection and a look back on some of the things that some people are feeling now that that first phase of COVID has passed. This really came out of me looking at my mom's experience and my sister's experience and my experience and thinking how different even in one family our three experiences we're at three different ages.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Here's one of those who probably had a very different experience from Michael because of her job. Sheila in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sheila.

Sheila: Hi. How are you doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Sheila: I am adjunct for a community college and I'm really struck by how many of the students now that I've returned to in person, which I just did, they say that they felt like nothing changed because a lot of them were like essential workers and they were working through the whole time and because their work didn't change to them it was all the same. That was very different for me. I was online. That totally broke my brain and I'm happy to be back in person, but it's very bizarre. It feels all very bizarre to be back in person, truthfully.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Although for a lot of who we call essential workers, I'm sure things were very different as well. Like, let's say you're a UPS delivery person or something like that, and suddenly there's all this contactless delivery for the people who had the luxury to be on the receiving end of what you had to be out there taking your risk to deliver.

Sheila: It was weird. Yes, I think they don't want to scratch and say it was weird for them. [chuckles] It seems like relationships that they'll talk about relationships changing, but the work stuff seems to numb them too because of what happens time-wise.

Brian Lehrer: Plow through. Right, so time didn't change that much for them. Sheila got you. Thank you. One more. At least one more. Nancy in Montclair, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nancy.

Nancy: Yes. Hi. I have a real problem because I had a very, very busy life, even though I'm pretty old. I was very busy. I lived in DC, I commuted to Montclair. I had a theatrical agent in New York City. I went to New York a lot and I managed to get out of DC on March 12th, 2020. Ever since then, I cannot remember when I did anything. I stopped to think and it's like the three years missing. When I try to remember that I did something, when was it because it seemed like it was just a year ago or two years ago and it turns out maybe it was six years ago, my whole sense of time has been warped. I went from being slightly old to feeling really old. It's a very strange sensation. I guess it's true of a lot of people who are older. Everybody had their own losses during the pandemic but when you're at the edge of life where you're still doing stuff and you really enjoy it, and then suddenly you can't, and then time has passed and I am losing track. My agent went out of business. I don't go to New York. The bus system that used to take me to New York from Montclair went out of business. Life is just very much quieter.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, we did a stretch last week on Governor Murphy commenting on those bus lines from Montclair to the city, as well as some other ones that went out of business because people just weren't commuting in as much and they weren't public transit, like NJ Transit or the MTA lines. They were private bus lines, so they had to make a profit in order to keep going and the commuting patterns changed so much.

Nancy: Ironically, New Jersey Transit came back with morning and evening commutes. If you want to go to a show or dinner in New York, forget about it. You can't, unless you drive and parking, it's insane. The whole reason for living in Montclair, for me, was to be so close to New York. That's shocked. It's sad really in many ways. Fortunately, Montclair is a nice place, and I'm lucky that I can afford to isolate, but still, it is very hard to remember that other life and when it happened.

Brian Lehrer: I was in Montclair the other weekend and noticed, maybe it's pandemic world. There was lots of outdoor dining in downtown Montclair. Nancy, thank you very much. The relationship with time though, that she talks about in that phone call is really relevant to your article, right, Katy?

Katy Schneider: Yes, I think so. I think for people who went from 77 to 80, those are really important years. My grandfather went from 87 to 90. It's a big jump.

Brian Lehrer: Absolutely. One more. Leslie in Fanwood, you're on WNYC. Hi, Leslie.

Leslie: Hi, there. I am a single mom of twins who were 12 when pandemic started. Most of the time, parents don't watch their children go through puberty day by day. It was a very interesting experience noticing the changes that you wouldn't be staring at in an ordinary time. The voice is changing, all the things that my kids would not allow me to say in public. They went in children and came out adults, and I watched it. Even our relationship during that time matured, and it was a very interesting experience going in with them, literally becoming different people.

Brian Lehrer: If they had been going to school in person more, you think that relationship with you would have been different as they went through puberty?

Leslie: I think so. Unfortunately, it was a great relationship. We became very close. I have now very irreverent children. Their senses of humor certainly developed differently. I think that if they spend time with their peers rather than me. Their whole socialization, I actually think it was good for our relationship, although I would never have wished it on anybody. It wouldn't repeat it.

Brian Lehrer: I love you said they're irreverent. The progressive parents button toward their kids. Question authority, except your parents.

Leslie: [chuckles] Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Leslie, thank you very much. All right. We're going to leave it there with Katy Schneider, features editor at New York magazine. Her essay in The Cut is called The Pandemic Skip. Katy, thanks so much for this good conversation.

Katy Schneider: Thank you for having me.

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