Loneliness During COVID-19 & Finding Hope In The Little Things
As we hit the nine-month mark of this pandemic, I find myself stuck in the ever-lingering sense of silence, not just in my room, but also in my typically whirring brain.
To echo the millions of voices rumbling across oceans, it’s been hard.
The depression I had been spending a year on dissecting and healing from came hungrily crawling back to me in the first few months of quarantine. In the vacuum of my apartment room, I remember turning on my side that night, eyes tired, and listening for the sound of hollow space.
A few weeks before, my roommate officially left to spend the next few months at her family’s house. After she left, my boyfriend graduated from UC San Diego and moved back home to scout for jobs. Home for me as well as probably for a lot of students, was too tumultuous to return to. I was already paying for rent in La Jolla, so I chose to stay.
At first, I found the space refreshing. I stretched and worked out in my room without worrying about bothering my roommate. I played music (and sometimes sang) way too loudly while I cooked my meals. As much as I hate to admit it, I sometimes left my dirty dishes on the table or in the sink for a little longer than normal. A greater sense of freedom first arrived with quarantine, as well as the gradual dissipating of my social anxiety. There were no more faces to impress. No longer did I need to obsess over every little thing I said wrong, awkwardly, bluntly, or strangely.
Until I realized the anxiety of loneliness.
As soon as I read someone’s post on Instagram about the days morphing together, my world began to collapse into itself. My routine: wake up, work out, eat, class, class, class, eat again, homework, fall asleep, repeat until I couldn’t fall asleep anymore, so I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at my hands waiting for something, anything, to just happen.
I found myself getting frustrated with not only myself but with everything else. The neon glamor of #SafeAtHome flickered into the dark from my phone as I struggled to feel safe with my own self. These thoughts seeped in when the apartment felt a little more empty and a little more silent.
It was a strange, yet familiar feeling — to be alone and to feel angry at myself for being alone, as if it was purely my own fault rather than that of an entire pandemic.
And, yet, the world moves on.
With my roommates all back for our final year at UCSD, the apartment clamors with the sound of cooking, baking, singing and laughing. The sounds of voices fill our rooms, and a secret, special sense of joy warms me in the regaining of human connection.
Still the days often feel dim and never ending, ladened with the constant struggle of keeping my head above water as my Zoom classes flash by and the universe trickles on.
It was hard. It’s still hard.
But I’m pushing through.
I bought plants (which probably made you smile or scoff). I’m reading all the books I’ve been waiting to finally have time to read. In the midst of my anxiety about getting COVID, I’ve even begun to take walks around my neighborhood (while wearing a mask, of course).
There is something grounding in these little things, in leaving my bed with a slightly greater sense of hope for whatever the day offers, as well as a trust that it’ll all work out.
And as I write to you: Deep breath. Drink water. Do the little things that bring you hope or joy or strength. Even if you’re at your worst or best or in between or nothing at all right now, you’ll be okay.
