The Pandemic Blues

Before the pandemic hit around this time last year, I was a very introverted person. I didn’t want to be around many people, I got annoyed whenever I would be around a lot of people. I wanted to be in the house pretty often (I’m a homebody and who wants to fight about it). I turned down outings pretty frequently just because social gatherings are kind of draining to me. And now that all that stuff is gone or at least a safer version of it is gone, I kind of miss it.

I miss festivals and trying out all the different food vendors. I miss browsing through all the different vendors and seeing all their homemade jewelry and lotions and other treats. I miss being annoyed by the crowds of people blocking the walkways, stopping right in the middle of the sidewalk and holding me up.

I miss going places in groups, not that I ever had the big of a friend group to begin with, but I can’t remember the last time I've been around more people than my mom and my sister.

I know people everywhere are going through it and there are people suffering way more than I am. Some people have lost everything, their jobs, their homes, people. Some of those things they’ll never be able to recover from. So of course, I feel guilty for feeling the way I feel because in the grand scheme of things, I've been very lucky. My entire family has been COVID free (and I hope I don’t jinx us by saying that), we’ve all kept our jobs (again no jinx please), and we haven’t been evicted because luckily our house is paid off. My sister and I have been able to continue our education. Can you believe I started my grad degree in the middle of a pandemic? What the fuck was I thinking?

And even with all those reasons to feel grateful I can’t help but feel hopeless that we’re smack dab in the middle of something that has no end in sight. If I felt stuck before I definitely feel trapped now. It’s suffocating. Crushing even, to know that the weight of a global pandemic is looming over us all and the carelessness of so many is stopping us from moving forward from it.

The worst part of it is that we don’t even have the simple comforts we used to have to stop the crushing feeling from being so overwhelming. The thing I miss the most is going to concerts and music festivals. In retrospect, I’m extremely put off by being in the same space as so many people’s breath, but I miss the community. I miss the comradery of so many people feeling music move through their bodies. I miss feeling the bass in my heart, I miss running through the moshpit. I miss seeing people that seem like Gods until they’re right in front of you and you see they’re a person just like you.

I miss the little comforts like that that you can relish in when it seems like your life is falling to pieces and you can’t do shit about it. I know things will probably never go back to how they were but maybe there will be a little semblance of the past to hang on to.