I miss New York. My New York. We were told to stay home for two weeks. That turned into another two weeks. Then another month? I walk around the neighborhood to see signs on businesses I frequent. I love my neighborhood. The border of Bushwick and Ridgewood, but basically Bushwick, I tell anyone who will listen. Between the L and the M, a little bit of a hike to the J if you’re ambitious, I also say. Some businesses are open, some are closed, some have different, shorter hours. I walk and see hearts, rainbows, teddy bears in windows. Signs thanking delivery drivers and essential workers make my eyes water. This is the New York I love.
I felt guilty and scared leaving New York. I struggled with the idea of leaving for a week and even when I decided to leave I was uneasy about the decision again. I left behind so many friends whose hometowns weren’t as close as mine, my sister easily picked me up. What if I’m an asymptomatic carrier since I’ve already shown symptoms just a few weeks earlier? My mom works in a doctor’s office, what if I passed it on to her? The questions running through my head never ended.
I convinced myself I was going on a two-week writer’s retreat and my sister promised she would bring me back soon. I knew I wasn’t going to go back anytime soon.
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Quarantine has me recollecting the most random of memories. A weekend in New Jersey, someone causing a scene on the subway, that one bar that reminds me of New Orleans with friends on a Wednesday. Doing cannonballs in the pool, walks around the neighborhood aimlessly, getting coffee and being late to work, my favorite songs from 2010.
Sweet, nostalgic memories that I cherish even more than I did before.
Night after night, I find myself looking at the 15,000 photos on my phone (yikes - how can I hoard so many memories?). April is always the start of the summer for me (as half my friends and I are Aries) but here I am, mid-April, and the most exciting thing I’ve done is have a photoshoot with my dog and try a new recipe.
Three years ago todayish, my senior year of college, I went to four baseball games in three weeks. My club won the “Best Picture” of our college’s annual awards ceremony and I shotgunned beers with the boys. My 22nd birthday was on Marathon Monday and I walked around with a shirt that said, “I am day drunk, good sir.”
Two years ago todayish, I was getting ready to move to New York and started a new job. A year agoish, I went to basketball games, celebrated every Aries I know, visited museums, saw a Broadway show, attended my cousin’s wedding.
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Fow a week I didn’t know what to do. I read a book. Watched a movie I didn’t even pay attention to. Watched another movie. Started a puzzle we all knew I wouldn’t finish. After 30ish days, I have found some sort of routine. My “new normal.”
I make my bed, drink coffee, play with the dog, read. I try to only watch movies at night. Plan a new activity for the day. I stole a small pair of small hoops from my mom’s jewelry drawer to feel some sort of empowerment and normalcy (I miss my jewelry and plants the most!!!). I leave my phone in another room and even find myself communicating less. The same three friends and I rotate texting each other “How are you, really?”
It’s been hard to sleep. And if you know me, you know I can fall asleep almost anywhere. House parties, a loud subway car, seven seconds into a movie, someone’s shoulder. Bed by 10, sleeping by 11, the latest. Maybe it’s because I’ve been overworked since I was 18 years old that I could fall asleep in an instant and I’ve finally caught up on sleep. Maybe it’s the worry and the uncertainty.
And I really feel fine. Despite the impending doom of having to pay rent for an apartment I’m not currently living at again with no type of income, I am...fine.
I feel different than I did 30 days ago. I’m no longer as sad or anxious. I still feel sad thinking about my city and my friends I left there. Maybe I shouldn’t avoid the news. I even joke that my major in college was literally “current events.”
I am a positive person. I always try to make the best of a situation. [Hence “the writer’s retreat” angle I kept trying to sell myself.] I read, I write, I watch something (I hate binge-watching TV but I became obsessed with Schitt’s Creek), spend time with my sister. We avoid going to bed and tell hilarious stories until we can’t breathe from laughing too hard. My mental health is protected. I am...grateful.
What we have deemed as essential employees (and of course they are!) are choosing between their health and a paycheck. Health care professionals are putting their lives on the line and anyone else in their house to save others while the rest of us are told to stay home. I am grateful. And here I am, perfectly safe in the suburbs, thinking about my sister’s college graduation or when I’ll be able to start my summer.
But can’t I be sad? Can’t I miss my nights with my friends and the basement of a pizzeria I’m supposed to call my office? Can’t I acknowledge the horror and suffering this crisis has brought to the world while still allowing myself to grieve what I’ve lost? My time, the weekend trips I go on every summer, concerts that make me happy, the start of a new job that I only spent two weeks at. I think about the last concert I attended, the last movie I saw in theatres, the last trip I went on, the last time I danced and sang in the kitchen with someone I love who’s far away from me now. I’m grateful for those memories I can hold onto right now.
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I sleep on a pull-out couch-bed in a bedroom that once belonged to me. A room where the walls were wallpapered with posters of Lana Del Rey, Led Zeppelin and Jim Morrison. A TV in my bedroom for the first time in my life is a weird perk. The bright yellow walls are now a mauvey-beige and some of the only decor in the room is a portrait of my dog (my friend painted it for my mom!) and random pictures of family. This is my normal for now.