After I published last month’s post, one of the first responses I got was from my friend Eric. Before saying some very nice things about my writing, he pointed out that Goodreads exists… which was funny if only because the original intro to January’s entry was about how, right before the world shut down, Eric was one of the last people I went to a bar with and while we were there, he tried so, so hard to get me to join Goodreads, a thing I absolutely refused to do after I realized I will never be able to write a review as funny or as scathing as his on “Where the Crawdads Sing,” a book many people found believable, but I can assure you, he actively did NOT. (I did not include that as the intro last month because I am trying to make more of an effort to not write about people on the Internet without telling them first after reading through every blog post I have ever written and realizing that maybe it was not great to use the real first names of guys I dated in stories about how they messed up — if you dated me five years ago, I am so sorry). Anyway, it was nice to know that, while almost everything else about my life has changed in the past year, Eric’s dedication to getting me to join a website I will be bad at has not wavered in the slightest and I appreciate him for that consistency.
None of the books I read this month had consistent themes — they ranged from the long, stretching narrative of an elderly woman deluding herself into solving a mystery that doesn’t exist to a collection of short stories I thought I would enjoy more than I actually did — but I found myself highlighting quotes in all the books that hit similar notes. I’ve felt very exhausted by the pandemic this month and I know that’s not a unique experience. The realization that we have been doing this for almost a year really hit me hard and every sentence that stuck out to me in February seemed to jump out because of how I could relate it to the loneliness/fear/monotony/etc I have been feeling for what seems like…. forever. Still, I am optimistic to a fault and underneath that low-grade current of dread that has just really been rolling through my veins in a constant wavelength from the very first time I ever heard the words “COVID-19,” I am cautiously hopeful. The quotes I picked for this project were the ones that reminded me not only of every hard/sad/alone moment I had this year, but also the ones that allowed me to consider the positive possibilities that have been able to arise.
FEBRUARY 2021 READS
“Life was persistent. There it was, every day.”
My first pandemic purchase was 36 bath bombs. This is, approximately, 28 too-many bath bombs. I’d bought them in mid-April, when it had already been weeks since I’d had a conversation with anyone in real life who wasn’t the delivery guy from Meatball Shop and I still thought that, maybe, we’d be doing this only until June (lol) and I, slowly, surely, was losing myself in the solitude. Again, this is not a unique experience, especially to those who were also quarantining alone in the early days of New York City’s lockdown, but every day was the same: I would wake up, I would drink my little coffee, I would do my little exercises, I’d complete my little work and make myself a little dinner before I’d read a little book and fall asleep on the couch with the lights on because, even though I am an adult, being alone for so long had also made me a little afraid of the dark.
I bought the bath bombs in an attempt to relax after I realized the painful cramping I was experiencing throughout my entire body was probably less from working out and more from the stressful tension radiating directly from my clenched jaw every time I remembered we were in a pandemic… which, is to say, it was happening constantly. I did not have high expectations for this ailment to be cured by hot, fizzy water in a fun color and, so, was delighted when the first time I used them, they worked — so well, in fact, that hours passed by.
I’d started the relaxation process early on in the late afternoon, bringing with me a book and a beer and a Bath and Body Works candle (purchased at the annual B+BW candle sale, an event that, pre-pandemic, I’d attended with my roommate and had been the most stressful experience of my life thus far, right up until an airborne pathogen arrived in my city), assuming I would abandon the activity shortly. Instead, I refreshed the water multiple times, watching from the bathtub as the sun went down, as the 7 pm clap started and ended, as the rest of the city grew as quiet as my apartment, and, in the dark purple water, I felt my muscles relax, preparing me for another day, one that I was going to accept would be exactly the same.
“A lifetime was a vast distance into the unknowable future when you’re still only in your twenties.”
In 2019, I attended 14 weddings and five bachelorette parties, a fun, financially disastrous decision that resulted in too many bridesmaids dresses, unspeakable credit card debt and almost everyone I know spending their first year of marriage under lockdown. Early on in the pandemic, most of these friends, coupled up in their big homes, checked in on me, alone in my small apartment, multiple times a week, something I very much appreciated. After every conversation, I would hang up feeling very cared for and loved, but also relieved with my life decisions because, even though I was by myself and, again, the only human contact I had was with the Meatball Shop guy (who, sensing this, once dropped off a handwritten card from all their employees thanking me for my consistent orders, both the sweetest and most embarrassing thing to happen to me in all of 2020), I couldn’t imagine being in a different one.
A side effect of watching 28 of your friends get married in a year while you’re still single is people asking you why you’re still single and it’s like…. is that really an appropriate question at this exact moment or, really, ever? I’ve experienced so much pressure in my adult life to figure out why I am not in a serious relationship, so much so that I’d begun to question it myself when, in reality, the answer was that I didn’t want to be. I am wildly independent and I enjoy that about myself, which is not to say that I don’t ever want to be paired up with someone, but speaks to the fact that I don’t need to be.
The pandemic, for me at least, put a pause on all those conversations, a blessing considering, if this had been a normal year, the chatter about me settling down would have steadily accelerated as we approached closer and closer to my last year in my twenties. I turned 29 this month and, removed from the societal pressure of feeling like I needed to be with someone to be complete, I welcomed the birthday, knowing that I am independently comfortable and confident with who I am, where I am, what I am doing and who I will become.
“She wanted to scoop up this feeling, bottle it, and tighten the cap so none could seep out, ever.”
I woke up the other day, not in my childhood bedroom, but in my childhood bed, in what could only be described as an acute panic about actually leaving my parents home. Last summer, after months of quarantining alone, I came back to Massachusetts for what was supposed to be a month-long stay. A series of events, the most notable being the addition of Charlie, the now 11 month old, 60+ pound puppy with a sleep disorder, has made me slowly extend that stay weeks at a time, leading me to have an undetermined date of return to NYC, even though paying rent for an apartment I do not live in splinters my soul.
I am intensely aware of how incredibly privileged I am to not only have the option to relocate to my parents home during the pandemic, but also to genuinely enjoy my time here, enough so that I do not want to leave. This is the longest I have ever lived in Massachusetts — my family moved here when I was in college and, because of that, I have exactly no friends here, so the past months have really just been an immersive experience of me and my mom and my dad spending every single day together. We’ve hiked a lot. We woke up early every morning in the warmer months to drink our coffee on the beach, the three of us and Charlie watching the sun rise over the ocean. We’ve gone to socially distant drive-in concerts for one of my favorite bands and watched comedy Zoom shows from the comfort of our couch in our matching Outdoor Voices sweatsuits for one of my favorite comedians. We’ve taken Charlie to the vet for emergencies-that-didn’t-turn-out-to-be-emergencies-but-still-cost-hundreds-of-dollars no less than four times (I am usually the instigator of this activity and am now currently banned from making medical decisions about our dog) and, also, hired him a therapist named Coach Mike, who helps out with his sleep disorder and fixes almost every problem with bacon.
My life has been on pause, but it’s been on pause with my parents and I’m so thankful I’ve been able to spend this time as an adult with them. I know this will not last forever. I know I have to go home soon (my roommate and the Meatball Shop employees miss me and I also miss them), but amid every awful thing I’ve felt in this past year, every single time I felt overwhelmed or scared or devastated by all that is happening in the world, I also want to be able to hold on to how special this opportunity was and how lucky I was to get to spend months on end with two of the people I love the most.
what I’ve been reading SINCE JANUARY 2020
