“There will come a day when this is all just a big floppy memory, so distant I can’t even recall the specifics. What’s more – one day it likely won’t exist in memory either, just in these pages, outlined in detail to help me process a new (albeit temporary) phase of my life.” – a journal entry from July 2020
It’s difficult to think about the entirety of my twenty-sixth year outside of just the past six months – COVID months. It hardly feels like a year since my last birthday. Normally, fast years signify busyness and excitement – time flies when you’re having fun! They don’t tell you it also flies when you’re in the midst of a global pandemic, edging towards the latter half of your twenties while the world is falling apart in, seemingly, every possible way.
But let’s honor the past, yes? Let’s step outside the last six months for just a moment, and remember the before times.
The half-a-year when I went to concerts and shows, lots of them – Vampire Weekend and Riceboy Sleeps and Dodie Clark and Noah Kahan. When touching other people felt electric with potential, not panic. When Jessi and I went to see the live taping of Fleabag, cozied up to other fans in a compact UCLA theater, conscious of my neighbor only because I wanted to use the armrest he’d already claimed. When I met up with casual friends at the roller rink. Unthinking, we squeezed our feet into skates hundreds of strangers had worn before us, then clumsily wobbled our way between groups of laughing teenagers and young couples holding hands.
When my family piled into a van to explore Death Valley. When it didn’t even occur to me to be nervous that my sister had come to meet us after attending a crowded work conference, or flown six hours from Philadelphia. When there were Christmas parties – three in a week – with coworkers and friends and extended family, shared appetizer trays and open bars. When, in the new year, I started going to the gym, and opted out of sanitizing equipment before I used it. “I’ll just wash my hands later,” I would think, nodding politely at the woman leaving the rowing machine before immediately taking her place. When three friends and I took the Gold Line to the Arts District, moving like liquid from brewery to ice-cream shop to Uber to home again.
When, in February, I went to see my grandma in the hospital. Felt the delicate skin of her hands below mine, watched her inhale and exhale, each breath a suspenseful ellipsis until the next came along. No masks necessary. When, three weeks later, a hundred of us gathered in a church sanctuary to celebrate her life.
And then – March came along.
I planned a sugar detox, built a meal plan for myself to stick to. It seemed as good a month as any to try something new and challenging. No major holidays. No family birthdays. My roommate was still in Indiana, and I’d reacclimated to living alone. As far as I could tell, it would be an uneventful month. Meanwhile, four hundred miles away, a cruise ship lingered off the coast of San Francisco, 21 passengers exhibiting symptoms of the new virus spilling it’s way from country to country. “No, I’m not concerned at all,” said the President of the United States. “You have to be calm. It’ll go away.”
—
So. That brings us – ever so briefly – up through March. Obviously, we all know what happened next.
The latter half of this year has been – anxious. It feels silly to even acknowledge that, you know? Spoiler alert: the sky is blue, 2+2=4, the year is 2020, and you are filled with crippling anxiety.
Despite that, there have been some beautiful moments.
Jessi returned from Indiana the week safer-at-home orders took effect in California, our months of solitude quickly shifting into constant contact. Incredibly, we fared well, with only a spot of tension as we adjusted to the new normal (anyone else argue a little too intensely about whether to turn right or left during your evening walk?). On Fridays, we would order takeout after trying to maintain relatively healthy habits during the week, and watch… MANY movies. We took full advantage of the isolation and watched over 50 from March to July, our list an ever-growing combination of comfort classics (Ever After, You’ve Got Mail, Princess Bride) to jaunty monster movies (The Meg, Jaws) to nostalgic dips into the childhood favorites (Homeward Bound, Ice Age, Ratatouille).
In April, I took a personal essay writing workshop! It proved to be a vital sense of structure in my life during the first two months of lockdown. Something official to look forward to and plan for each week, a safe space to channel anxious energy outside of everything else going on. Even if this poor blog doesn’t have much to show for it, I’ve actually been writing more than ever this year, essays and journaling to process everything going on. Ever learning to appreciate my art, even if it doesn’t exist in any public capacity. (That said, I had a small little piece published this year, which is exciting!)
There was a spot of dating, which seems ironic considering my past few years have been… overwhelmingly inactive. Why, this year of all years, did I jump back in? It’s wild how we still have these human desires at the end of the world. How we still long for connection, long for someone to smile at us, long for that elusive “click.” I’m constantly drawn back to the words of Theodore Isaac Rubin: “I must learn to love the fool in me — the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.”
There’s more to write about – more, much more, that happened this year. But perhaps those things can wait for a New Years post or perhaps a published essay? (Will it into being!). I want to move on now to my hopes for next year – my 27th year!
For starters, I want to be less envious – which is to say, I want to actually do more of the things I see other people doing, instead of just watching them from behind a screen, resenting that I haven’t done more of them myself. Hiking is an example! I see other people do it and think “wow, I want to be that person,” but build up a mental list of excuses that keep me from actually doing it (I don’t have anyone to hike with, it’s too hot in California, I don’t have the right gear, I’m not fit enough, etc etc etc). I get stuck in the comparisons and never just walk out the door and Do The Thing.
There’s been pain this year, and anxiety. Lots of anxiety. I hope for a future with less of those, and more happiness and peace. More lighthearted, carefree anything, everything. I hope for a year where I don’t let the past jade my future. Of course, in order to accomplish that, I have to address the very things I want to move on from. Mary Oliver puts is beautifully in her poem “The Fire”:
“Those days I was willing, but frightened.
What I mean is, I wanted to live my life
But I didn’t want to do what I had to do
To go on, which was: to go back.”
I want to maintain those healthy habits I’ve worked hard to sustain – like not eating processed sugar and exercising regularly (typed as I sit very still at my kitchen table, face splotched with acne because of the birthday cupcakes I’ve been eating. I embrace it all!). I’ve been jump roping the last few months, which has been surprisingly fun! Nevertheless, I am a person who can love a habit, keep it up for months, but all it takes is one or two weeks of a thrown off schedule to stagnate me for months.
May it be a year of savoured goodness and small, significant moments of beauty! A year where the memories stand out, a year of good old days. A year of growth, a year of doing the hard internal work. From Neruda:
“The best thing was learning not to have too much either of sorrow or of joy,
to hope for the chance of a last drop,
to ask more from honey and twilight.”
Links to my past birthday posts:
Tea, cats, and life. 