How the Pandemic Helped me Find Writing Again

I was looking for a mental escape.

Gracia Kleijnen
5 min readApr 21, 2021

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An illustrative figure showing the virus the middle finger. A rectangular comic screen on the right shows a happier figure behind a Banana laptop writing on Medium
Illustration by author, Medium logo from Canva

Two years into freelancing, and it’s starting to go somewhere. The funny thing is, I had no idea I’d end up writing once again. As a matter of fact, I was trying to get away from writing.

Not too long ago I held a fulltime job as a translator and copywriter. You’d think it ain’t that bad. However, the nature of the work at this particular position was quite monotonous. Due to legacy software, around 70%+ of the time was spent copy-pasting data between systems.

When you’re at the bottom of the corporate food chain, it’s unlikely that folks higher up will consider your suggestions for software upgrades. You’re just a cog in the machine. Your job is to do as you’re told.

When a great opportunity to quit arose, I jumped ship. Armed with savings to support me at least for the year, I set out into the world, to become a… professional coder? Yep, I was very confused.

Dealing with restrictions

Before global escalation started, I fled to a friend’s house, where I experienced the first state-imposed, let’s call it “indoor-stay”. This one was hardest getting used to. With the world on edge, the people were preparing for a potential apocalypse and panic-buying toilet rolls to…

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Gracia Kleijnen

Sheets & comics creator. Words on YT, relationships, mental health, productivity & self-development in 35+ pubs. 📕Book author: https://bit.ly/Gracia-Book