Reflections on a Year of Covid-19

A reflection on a year ago. A picture of my bagel and coffee in what would be one of my last normal-ish outtings, March 11th, 2020. We’ve been doing this for a year. A year. Of This. Looking through my photos from that time I wish I had more pictures with the people I saw just before it began, and the few I saw in the first few weeks. Do you think back and wish you saw more people, if you’d known what was to come? At the risk of sounding dramatic, there’s so many people I wish I’d seen one last time. Since I moved out of Austin to Los Angeles it’s likely that I’ll never see those people again, from Before. Ones I never said goodbye to. I often think of particular people, students from the library I worked at, those are the “goodbyes that never were” that hurt the most. But there’s so many others: the people you interacted with sparingly but who always made you smile. A barista at your local coffee shop, the acquaintances you high five in a regularly meeting big fitness group, the new faces at a sober bar you pop into on Fridays. All parts of a life I moved on from without much processing because how could I process all of that loss?

How do you measure a life? I often think about all the “invisible influences” that permeate our existence and silently nudge our actions and thoughts. Things like, environmental design, sociology, social constructs, government and behavioral science. What I didn’t think about as much, until I moved to a different city in a pandemic, was the consistent flow of actions, words, gestures and activities happening around and to me that contributed to my overall well-being. Aspects that I lost due to covid, and again when I moved. What is that saying, “You don’t know how good something is until it’s gone”, or something like that. Normalcy. Consistency. The repetitive nature of knowing you’ll go to the same places and see the same people every day. Gone. Replaced with the same place, with all the characters and actions removed. A state of limbo that keep repeating the same chapter yet with nothing of interest happening. “How are you Doing”, the question we don’t want to answer anymore because how do we answer based on an existence stuck in an eternal loop? March 11th 2020. A part of me wishes I had known so I could have said goodbye to my life, but a part of me knows there’s no way any human could have handled the weight of what that would all mean. All of what this year has been, how do you prepare someone for this?

People move all the time, and in the process you leave behind an entire existence. You can never say goodbye to everyone. But you plan on moving, you have the ability to process that you’re making the choice to change every aspect of your life. You have time to take action, both mentally and physically to make separations between phases & places of your life. To prepare for what you’re letting go of and what you will receive in the new place. Moving is never easy, and I don’t think we are ever completely aware how much it will affect us.

When you think about moving, what may come to mind for you first is people. Specifically, friends and family, and how hard it is to let go of deeply embedded relationships. But we also let go of places. We let go of the way our bodies move through our spaces of living. We let go the way our patterns intersect with the patterns of the individuals around us. Maybe that’s the way you drive to work, the walk you take with your dog through your neighborhood, or the way your body reacts to the sun at different times of the day depending on the level of shade or space you’re inside or outside of. Our bodies and minds grow accustomed to a particular flow of life. Sure, there’s always deviations, it’s never EXACTLY the same, but the general shape of your life has a design. Like a labyrinth made of jello. Not impenetrable, but still guiding your choices and behaviors. When we move to a new city or job there is an adjustment period, we feel uncomfortable and/or excited. And these things, for the most part, are anticipated. Our minds are prepared for a transition, a new chapter. Covid was not anticipated. The changes we had to make in our lives were abrupt, sudden, and there was not something to look forward to. These are two key factors, A) This was not a choice, for any of us. And B) We weren’t going towards something new. We were stuck in what we already have but deprived of so much we had. Walking empty streets felt novel and curious but also lifeless and strange.

There is no ‘adjusting’ to this. This is something I’m only beginning to really realize, a year into this ordeal. It is true that humans are incredibly amazing when it comes to adaptation. We evolve and adjust according to our environments. We change our behavior, we learn, we grow and shape shift in different spaces. But it’s not always a positive thing. We adapt to survive, but some adaptations are meant to be temporary, are not supposed to be ongoing. Humans can be incredibly resilient, but are meant to “bounce back” when there is an environment that can support your continued growth. To be sure, pre-covid existence was not perfect. Sociologists, anthropologists, other ologists, talk about “mismatches” between humans and their environment. Humans evolved one way in one environment, and now we are in another environment and there is friction. A lot of friction, which can mean anything from poor environmental design to human rights violations and discriminations to economic inequality. All of which “friction” points create stressors that are perpetual and negatively impacting our well-being. So yes, not perfect. But pre-covid also had a lot of positive aspects of most environments. And those were largely stripped away, in physical, social and psychological ways to leave us feeling more than slightly unsettled and out of place in a place that was once so familiar.

Amidst that pandemic familiar/unfamiliar disconnection, I also moved to Los Angeles from Austin in October of last year. I left behind a place, a life, with so many thousands of pieces and people that contributed to the wholeness of my being. I’m still processing what it means to let go of those pieces, fill up with new ones, & accept that amidst everything there will still be spaces left unfilled.

I am grateful to all of the people that came into my life during the past year. Despite being a year of utter disconnection compared to Before, I did develop several relationships. I managed to make new friends, even early on, and dove deep with them. I uncovered new layers of friendships with people from Before. I ended friendships, both intentionally & casually as we all didn’t have the means to keep coming together. In the normal days I felt like I could never get enough time with friends. I was always at a social thing, but I would say most of my friendships, while genuine, were not super deep, with a few exceptions. Seeing only a pod of a few people forces you to get to know each other deeper, for good or bad. Some of these friendships had too much time together. Some had too much digital contact but not enough in person contact. Some were people I might not have gravitated towards under “normal” circumstances but grew to love very deeply. I dated someone from the Beginning thru the summer. A new relationship developing in tandem with a new pandemic. It was cute but uncomfortable, with this veneer of attempted normalcy through quiet chaos. I’m glad I had consistent company through that time, living alone. But we were not a great match, romantically. I repeatedly wondered if we’d be better as friends. I was very much attracted to him, but there always felt like a disconnection. Despite deciding to be exclusive because of the pandemic, and genuinely caring about each other, I don’t think we really got to know each other on a deeper level. I don’t know if it would have been different if we’d dated under “normal” circumstances. I ended up developing an urgency to establish us as a “real” relationship, pushing something that wasn’t really there to develop. It was more than just “passing the time” with someone, but not quite a romantic relationship. It was a catalyst influencing my move to Los Angeles, he lives in this massive city as well, but we are not in contact. I’m grateful to him as someone to put a pocket of my budding love into, for a short period of time, even if he did not feel the same. He offered me space to connect with a human amidst a crazy time, and for that I am grateful. Is a lackluster love ideal? No. Is having companionship, touch, sex and intimacy really helpful in a pandemic? Yes, 100%.

This wasn’t meant to be a processing of the year. I just wanted to think about that Middle of March. I wanted to focus on how that felt, recall the beginning of the Split of Before and After. Then and Now. But as thoughts do they unravel and grow, and I find myself reflecting on all the times In Between. So, I’ll continue to reflect.

When my covid quarantine romance ended it made me feel so vastly aware of how many gaping spaces there were in my life. It was a catalyst with many tendrils tied to the months before, tendrils having nothing to do with him, tendrils that started months and years before covid and in the midst of Unprecedented Times came crashing down and said “Move Now”. Move away from this literal space, move towards new connection, move away from this idea of what you think is supposed to be Reality and make a beeline for something else. Move away from the narrative of a lifestyle in Austin that wasn’t truly fitting, towards the end of my time there. People ask me why I moved to LA, people ask me why I left Austin and I’ll say “grad school” but the truth is it was so highly motivated by this intangible limbo of covid existence where everything Just Isn’t Quite Enough to satiate your needs. Needs of love, touch, connection, work, play, being a piece in a bigger puzzle. When I lived in Austin I would often revel at how everyone is living their unique beautiful frustrated depressed happy stressful lives ALL AT THE SAME TIME and somehow, magically, weaving together and creating magic amongst them. We build cities, we do our jobs, we drive and move through space and time, constantly aware and unaware of how many people are doing the exact same thing. And I LOVE that awareness, I LOVE that feeling of being a piece of that bigger entity. But in covid, I lost that. So, I needed to push against this space of nothing, I needed to crawl and dig my way out. You dig and crawl out of this mental space and attempt to use physical space to transform, to create, to push against something. Like a sperm trying to permeate an egg’s barrier I drove to Los Angeles, barreling along the highways at a mostly reasonable speed, pushing against the waves of everything and everyone I know in Austin, most of whom are more memories than tangible beings, I zipped down that highway, 14 hours in one day, just aching to get inside that fucking egg and make IMPACT. Feeeeeeeeel in my body that something was happening. Feel that I wasn’t just gathering cobwebs sitting on my couch. See that there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

And now I am here. It has been about 4 ½ months since I got into LA. And today is a year ish since the beginning of the past year of our lives. I had no idea back then that I would be moving to Los Angeles, or moving at all. I had no intentions of doing that, I loved my life in Austin. Loved it with a fervor. But there were tendrils, speaking of change, shifting in thoughts, and contemplation of a different chapter. I grieve today what was and what would have been if things had remained “normal”. But I’m also very grateful for all of the things that have led me to where I am now. I am excited to explore a new city, Los Angeles, and connect with a whole new group of people. I love people. I love them so so so much. Every ounce of my being wants to be connected with others, learn from them, grow with them and experience life with them. Things are shifting, as more people get the vaccine you can feel the change. But again, it’s not quite there yet, which is simultaneously exciting and agonizing. It feels appropriate to reflect on this year before pushing into the next “phase” of life or return to “normalcy” when everyone is vaccinated. No amount of words can summarize the things we’ve experienced and felt over the past year. My heart goes out to everyone as we continue to endure.