I Was Living in Pandemic Conditions Before COVID-19

COVID-19 upended everything. As cases exponentially increase and the holiday season approaches, many are weighing spending time with family against the possibility of infecting someone with the virus.

Unemployment rates are sky-high and people are isolated from their friends, forced to settle for “Zoom” happy hours on their phones and computers. Intimacy and physical touch, things we likely took for granted, became a form of currency in which the accounts of nearly everyone are bankrupt.

As society searches for ways to cope, I find myself disoriented. In the midst of a mad dash toward normalcy, my life hasn’t changed much because I’ve spent the last decade living in pandemic conditions.

While many discuss being trapped in their homes, occasionally with spouses they dislike, I’ve spent years either quarantined with a romantic partner or isolated in my own living space.

Zoom happy hours with friends in 2020 is essentially how I’ve maintained friendships, whether through video calls or enough Google chat messages to fill several volumes of an Encyclopedia Britannica.

Those complaining about not being able to see their family this holiday season?

It was a regular occurrence to only see mine once a year.

Coronavirus boosting the unemployment rate?

It took five years after law school to find a stable job.

Working at home and separated from my co-workers?

That was life as a freelance writer in between jobs I couldn’t ever seem to close the deal on.

People needing work that doesn’t pay them enough to get by?

I’m definitely not a stranger to underemployment.

It’s an undoubtedly difficult situation that turned bills into a persistent source of stress. And, paying those bills required monumental undertakings that may have included, but were not limited to, borrowing money from people with a promise of repayment at some undisclosed time in the future.

As the coronavirus pandemic stretches through the end of 2020 and likely into 2021 there may, possibly, be some solace found in the idea of the collective. The adage of “everyone going is through the same thing together.”

Except, I’ve always felt my life was lived in direct contradiction to everyone around me.

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from HBO’s The Wire.

In an episode titled “Misgivings,” two characters, Bodie and Pooh are discussing their boss Marlo, a sociopathic drug kingpin. Both men discovered Marlo is responsible for murdering their friend Little Kevin. Bodie calls Marlo a “cold motherfucker.”

Pooh responds, “it’s a cold world.”

Bodie is confused by Pooh’s comment, as Pooh previously discussed global warming as a reason for the world heating up. Bodie tells Pooh, “I thought you said it was getting warmer.”

Pooh tells Bodie, “world going one way, people another, yo.”

For so many days, months, and years my experiences felt singular in comparison to my peers, so much so, emotional shutdowns were a go-to for how I slept at night and found the strength to try again in the morning.

2020 is different.

The pandemic dropped like an anvil and even the most stoic among us are beginning to crack. Meanwhile, as 2020 earns the distinction of being an inconceivable blight on human history it also, inexplicably, became the best year of my professional life.

It reinforces the idea of a world going one away and me going another.

I find myself assessing how I’ve lived prior to the coronavirus “shutdowns” and what that life might look like after I shove men, women, and small children out the way to sign up for the vaccine.

Because living in a pandemic hasn’t been all that different from what came before, I’ve considered whether changes should be made. It’s easy to take “outside” for granted when you believe it will always be there, but it’s hard to maintain the idea of keeping the status quo when I personally know at least three people who’ve died since all of this started.

A friend recently passed from health complications. Another friend had a brain aneurysm. One friend lost the love of her life. And not just the love of her life, but someone she was so in tune with she may not ever be the same again.

I think of how much time I’ve missed with my family and friends because of work or lack of money. I ponder about plans to visit places and people that never came to fruition. I’m still blessed to have both my mother, grandmother, and aunt, three women who mean the world to me, but also realize I’ve taken their presence for granted.

To be clear, the pandemic didn’t serve as a reminder. The path I’ve chosen necessitates delaying the things I want to do, to do the things I must.

What the pandemic did teach me, however, is the things I want to do are no less important than things I must.

And I can’t be careless with the idea they will still be around when I’m ready.