Been a while, huh? Expression feeds off feelings, and feelings are dangerous in a year like 2020. I want to say "Congratulations!" to everyone who is still here, reading, without falling apart. Because while I watched the world fall apart this year, I tried hard to hold on to the very fragile thread my own world was hanging on. This said, consider that I have a job, a wonderful home, and most importantly, a body free from Covid-19 and any other detectable disease that has symptoms. The truth that I am one of the "lucky ones" is both devastating and unfulfilling to my own emotional household. And as I pack up my life for the 10th time in my life because keeping this house in Covid-times has proven unprofitable for my landlady, I am reminded that even a good existence is bad this year.
There are two opposing stories I can tell about 2020. The one I choose to identify with is the one where there is a global pandemic, I keep my job, I am safe, I work on great but exhausting projects and I spend a great summer with people I love. The other is the one there is a global pandemic that comes close to destroying the life of the people I love most, I watch people I don't even know lose everything and I can't do anything about it and I try to focus on my own luck by being able to turn away... but I cannot do it. It's not who I am. And I cannot change it. I am not dying myself and have been told that I need to be grateful for being "unaffected", however, it has not been easy for me to watch others do exactly that.
Of course, my pain doesn't compare to the pain of being the one who lost a loved one. Or a business. Or a job. How I feel about my own pain is comparing a bowl of rotten Skittles to a swimming pool filled with them. My bowl full of shitty Skittles reeks and tastes like crap, sure, but it's a bowl. Of all the things that happened to people this year, my pathetic little bowl is one meal of bullshit and possible completely consumed by 2022. I should stop indulging in the pain the pandemic inflicted on my family and I. We have a very high chance of survival, bigger than most. But living in a world surrounded by pain IS pain. I see it. And it takes away all joy which, granted, is not my breath but a tough thing to lose. The threshold of pain this planet can endure is blown over and over again.
In the beginning of the year, we celebrated great news: My sister was pregnant. In Egypt where she lives. Fast forward a few months and her partner is actually dead, we cannot get her out of the country because no flights, you know, and we have to worry about her care as Egypt isn't a huge fan of reporting a true picture of their Coronavirus cases. She's alone in Egypt, mourning a death while preparing for new life, and nobody is allowed to help her. This just doesn't happen. It's not an issue we were ever prepared to have. And hence, we were all splendidly overwhelmed. Through this all, my sister continued to teach children online, I work like a maniac but that's not new, neither is the lack of it actually being worth it. And even in these moments that teach you there is really only one thing that matters, and it's not work or (insert bullshit), you realize that even without a positive test you have lost so much this year.
Putting my own pain into perspective of the tsunami of terrible news this year has been challenging. My painfully optimistic outlook on life externally is a big pile of deception. Fake it until you make it, baby: If you can't actually enjoy life, pretend you are. We are going to do this for as long as we can because letting reality in is probably the end. I am mourning this year and everything it took from me. Covid did not take my nephew's father. Covid didn't take my boyfriend out of the country, making it impossible for me to see the only person I need. The emergence of Coronavirus did not make me work my ass off until I almost burned out. But the Coronavirus is taking away our opportunity to heal from these things. But look at me, talking about "healing" in 2020; foolish little girl thinking that healing can start while we are still bleeding.
While you might think I am not in a good place writing this, the truth is I sit here with two arms and two legs, a healthy lung as far as I know and the worst thing that happened to me this week is that a concert I had tickets for does not happen. I am definitely ok. However, my heart hurts knowing that whatever I feel is on the lower end of the spectrum of possible pain felt in 2020. If I am the lucky one, the one who had an easy ride this year, something is insanely wrong. When the life I have lived this year, with an excruciating amount of loss and pain, is branded "the good life", an inflation of meaning is happening to the word "good". When being ok means surviving until the vaccine hits the veins, "ok" has become a dire existence. Even John Mayer knew that waiting for the world to change is not where we should be at, yet here we are, trying to minimize scars rather than preventing damage. The damage is done. Non-negotiable. We just have to wait to see how bad it is.
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