Ode to Ennui

Some years back, my friend and I discovered the word ennui. I don't mean it hadn't been in our vocabulary up that point. We were grown women. I had a child. We'd heard of it. But by some miracle, we hadn't experienced it yet. Or if we had, we didn't know it.

But suddenly, there we were. Both in the throes of ennui—our only relief the bougie label we could attach to the feeling. Ennui felt grander than the doldrums or good old fashioned boredom with life. Ennui felt like something one could declare over a martini. Something one could use as a proper excuse for failing to bring a gift to a party. Or show up to the party at all. Something one could succumb to.

I'm not positive, but I think our mutual delight with the word itself pulled us out of the pit of despair. We enjoyed the idea of ennui so much that suddenly we had something to live for again. And when one has something worth living for, it's not such a leap to acknowledge that one has many such things.

OK. Sharp turn ahead.

You know when you've stubbed your toe and you're certain it's broken, the pain is so unbearable? You know that feeling? Then one day you actually break your toe and you realize how wrong you were about all those stubbed toes?

I'm pretty sure that's what happened with me and ennui all those years ago. A few lifetimes into this pandemic, I think I'm ready to admit that the ennui of my younger days was nothing but a stubbed toe. Excruciating for a moment, but treatable with a stack of sticky notes (that's a whole other story).

I had no concept of pandemic ennui. No idea that one could become so frightfully bored. So utterly boring. I couldn't have imagined that where doubles ennui was affirming and almost fun, mass ennui would be oppressive and just, like, a real bummer man.

If you're getting the impression that this blog post is headed in the direction of offering some kind of relief or advice about pandemic ennui, let me stop you right there. I've got nothing. I'm too listless and full of flop-myself-on-the-chaise-lounge energy to have ideas. All I've really got is my favorite quote that, frankly, has come up too many times in my writing:

Any idiot can face a crisis. It's the day-to-day living that wears you out.

If ever there was touchstone for sufferers of ennui, this Chekhov quote is it. If you're one of those folks who enjoys a Live. Laugh. Love. sign in the living room, might I humbly suggest a little switcharoo? I think we could all use a little less empty encouragement and a lot more bitter (but artfully written) truth on our walls.

So that's it. If you, like me, have succumbed to pandemic ennui, I see you. The day-to-day living is wearing me out too. It's not a crisis, this ennui. If it were a crisis I'd know what to do with it. I'd spring to action because that's how I'm built. 

I'm just bored with myself. If you're bored with yourself too, we should get together for some doubles ennui. Not like actually get together. There's a pandemic on. But I could send you some sticky notes in the mail that might put some wind back into your sails. Because heaven forbid you end up in the doldrums. At the very least, let's succumb to something classy.