sometimes i can’t believe that a global pandemic happened (is happening?) and for a year+, we were told to stay inside, mask up, and isolate. i distilled all of the noise and information—of which there was an abundance—into one unhealthy mantra: Stay away from people; you’re safer alone. roughly 2 yrs spent with that mindset.
i fully sobbed—chest rising and falling, boogers booger’ing down the face—upon getting my 1st shot in the basement of a vacant mall. plastic chairs spread 6’ apart with plastic dividers reinforcing the need for space. i waited for hours that day, but for months, really. it feels like i woke up from a deep afternoon nap—one that dries your mouth out & renders you disoriented. “what day is it? the time?” and now, life is “life” again. but, how profoundly i’ve changed—how profoundly, try as we might to ignore it, things have changed.
it feels as though i’m at-odds with what’s expected of me. at-odds with what the performance of “life” pre-pandemic entailed. it bothers me that a seemingly large faction of us have…just…assimilated back into it? with such ease? how can you do that? i’m asking not out of provocation, but as a comrade. because, i certainly have failed to act as i once did before all of this. you may not believe in a collective consciousness, but surely, you must believe in collective trauma? in collective PTSD?
when 9/11 happened, we changed air travel forever; we changed security, surveillance and paranoia forever. i’m not making the case that those are positive or productive solutions, but they were “solutions” nonetheless. answers, however problematic in hindsight. when coronavirus happened…what did we change? i’m not talking about a half-answer to this quandary i.e. hybrid work schedules or less time in our cars. what, systemically, culturally, has changed? and, how do we propose to address that?
perhaps it’s my bubble—the fact that i’m not working currently and have way too much time on my hands—but i am concerned that none of us, collectively, have unpacked what the fuck just happened from 2020-now. no one has addressed it on a global, broad scale. in a REAL way. (i’m stuck on what’s “real” lately). i’m scared that i’m the only one stubborn enough to refuse to readjust, and that this fear makes me irrational. i can’t just “get over it.”
anyone else? bueller?