See you when the sun sets, when the time is on my side again.
*trigger warning*
I haven’t written in the last 2 days, because exhuaution got the best of me. Maybe also because I asked myself… is anyone even reading this?
I’ve been staying up nights and sleeping days — somehow the house just feels more calm, more mine. There’s no food being cooked in the kitchen or clothes being washed, no news on the TV, no footsteps in the hall… Time slows down and my thoughts flow, and even if they don’t, I know I can just lay there without blinking an eye… and no one would try to make me feel better, or ask if i’m alright, or tell me to do any chores… my time.
For days i’ve had trouble pin pointing exactly what is it that i’m feeling? this desire to not move at all, a strange sadness, an emotion that takes over my entire body restricting it from moving —don’t get me wrong, I do still manage to hoop a little and stretch once in a while… I watch things and read books, but I just don’t feel like i’m doing enough of it. I feel… I don’t have a word. I feel sadness, so much of it at once that it is too heavy to hold. I feel weighted down. I feel helpless. I feel…a little blank too.
This can’t all possibly be just the lock down? this can’t be because I have to stay home, no… I stay home a lot — i’m the kind of girl that loves spending time inside my house, even on my own — I always have things to do. Even when I am not working, I am always running out of time… if there’s one thing i’m great at, it’s keeping busy.
So it cannot be the lock down, I reassured myself. It had to be more than just that. It had to be bigger than being forced to stay at home, it had to be something I was just unable to pin point (again so unlike me) probably because my mind was clouded by emotions that were being thrown in without being processed.
As I there, disproportionately spread on the couch, Rahul walked past me, softly saying “I know this is really hard… you feel defeated, don’t you?” the word stuck a chord. Just like that — he put words to my fluctuating feelings of days. Defeated.
I felt defeated. It made so much sense all of a sudden. To be sure that this is what I was feeling, I googled the definition — just to be sure.
:Defeat is the opposite of victory. When you lose, you suffer defeat.”
I had been calling this a war since the beginning… I keep saying, we are at war — this is a war, thankfully one that isn’t against each other… but this is a war nonetheless.
No wonder I felt defeated. Regardless of how many days you lock people down for, and despite the “daily motivations”… I feel defeat and I haven’t been able to make it go away.
I’ve been thinking about the racism taking place in the world right now. Even when this war isnt between people, we tend to find a way to hurt others, we find a way to execute our power. Black Americans in America, North Easetern Indian’s in India, Chinese everywhere — people are being illtreated for no fault of theirs. Poor people are dying everywhere — because no matter what the issue at hand, it is always the poor that suffer isn’t it? The virus kills them, the lock down kills them, poverty itself kills them. Are we doing enough? Ask yourselves, ask each other, are we doing enough?
I’ve been thinking about the next 12 months as well... the coming year, scares me. Countries all around the world can’t afford to shut down for a year — that isnt possible because the economy will suffer more than we can imagine and if the economy suffers, people will die. But if we don’t lock down till we have a vaccine, then too, people will die.
a part of me has struggled to come to terms with the fact that these deaths, are just numbers. “Flatten the curve”… involves death’s of people, but in extremely practival ways. When experts say that we will need to have mini lock downs through out the year on and off when outbreaks happen… what they are really saying is that we can’t risk for the whole world to stay home for a year, for the economy to suffer so much, so we will have to go back to work once this is controled… until another outbreak happens and more people die rapidly — thats when we will lock down once again — when people have died.
Maybe I am just a sensitive fool, maybe this is what all war’s and politics are like, but the thought of a year full of fluctuating deaths has been really weighing up on me. When life goes back to normal and people start going back to work — not everybody is going to maintain social distancing, not all bars are going to be empty, not all railways and taxi’s are going to be sanitized for the next year… and people will die again. This will spread all over again.
Today what is a number to you, could tomorrow be somebody you love. For the rest of the world, that’ll still just be a number. For an economy, their job is to try and keep these numbers to a minimum… these numbers.
You know currently if there are 20,000 people that have died, it must be easily affecting more than 1,00,000 other lives? Everybody knows atleast 2 other people, if not more. So many hearts aching in the world right now at the loss of their loved ones… you may not know them, but who’s to say it cannot be us or someone we love?
This next year is going to be the hardest year of all. My heart is going to sink every time my mother or my grandmother call. Every call, and i’m petrified that its bad news… I can’t help it you know, I can’t help that I’m feeling like this… because no one is telling me i’m wrong either.
You and I could be okay tomorrow, we don’t know if we are as high at risk, but our parents won’t stop going out to shop things and sitting in auto’s and life will go back to normal and we’ll be days away from yet another outbreak… more people, more lives, more numbers on a stats website — thats all we become. Today Spain death is 31% lower than yesterday when 493 people have died, Belgium is 39% higher at 69 deaths.
We’re a percentage. We’re numbers, numbers that need to be controlled. We are being picked from… a 45 year old with two kids will hold more importance than a 84 year old. Will the choice one day be between my mother and my grandmother?
if this isnt a war, then what is?
if this next year doesn’t feel like defeat… then what does?
if other people’s sadness isnt a part of ours, then is our sadness even important at all…?
I am sorry, I don’t mean to make anyone feel worse than they’re already feeling in this lock down — that’s if anyone is even reading… I just want you to rememeber, that this isnt over just because they say its over, I just want you to maintain common hygine, be sensitive, and kind, and thankful, and have gratitude, and give whatever you can to others — even if it’s just your positive words, your time, your stories, or your art…
I feel extremely defeated these days, but the one thing I know is that being defeated is not the same as being dead. I am still alive today, and so are you if you are reading this… and if we are alive, we are useful. If we are alive, we are capable of making a change. All the sadness and sorrow in the world cannot stop you from loving other people, from raising your voice for a better world, for spreading awareness.
if you’re going to be another number, at least be the kind that changes the life of humanity on this planet for a split second.
See you after the sun set’s, when the only noise is our silence out and there is a vaccume of thoughts — time is on my side again.
