Torn between Grief and Gratefulness
Dealing with mixed feelings while living in quarantine.
I have to be perfectly honest — I feel like I am built to live the quarantine life.
And I say this with a huge pit in my stomach because I had society convince me that I have to be guilty to feel this, and for perfectly understandable and well-founded reasons. The world outside is eerily quiet. Companies are implementing massive layoffs. Many scramble to find food in order to survive the day. Shelves are empty. Hospitals are filled. Industries are dying. People are dying. Then straight cut to me sitting snug in an armchair with a cup of freshly brewed coffee on my side telling the world that this quarantine life is not that bad. It’s an awful picture.
I am privy to my privilege. It’s the kind of awareness that gives me mixed feelings when boxes of a week’s worth of groceries are brought into the house. It’s the kind of awareness that diminishes the joy of sipping available wine in the safety confines of home. It’s the kind of awareness that takes away the satisfaction from biting a piece of freshly baked banana bread. It’s the kind of awareness that reveals the stark contrast of my cushy indoor life to the perils of the outside world. It’s the kind of awareness that can be mentally and emotionally intoxicating. Draining.
I am also not oblivious to the hardships that the world is battling across all fronts — social, political, financial, economic — hell, even psychological. For many instances, I have jolted wide awake at 2AM, heart throbbing to the beat of my accelerating anxiety. And this is not just anxiety for the world at large. This is anxiety that comes close to home. Friends in emergency rooms. Sickly grandparents. Aunts and uncles fighting in the frontlines. News of death of friends’ relatives. No amount of distraction can shoo away these dim, pensive thoughts that linger and slowly synthesize in the subconscious, only to reveal itself with such ferocity in the middle of the night.
But still, I feel like I am built to live the quarantine life because of the idea it offers, one that thrives in the territory of possibility. The possibility of quiet time. The possibility of introspection. The possibility of comfortable lulls. The possibility of quality conversations. The possibility of genuine ‘how-are-yous’ from friends and strangers. The possibility of intentional living.
A side of me calls this bullsh*t. The other calls this hope.
