A Pandemic Year

I t’s been a long year. So long.

I haven’t been able to write substantively because I’ve been struggling with depression, trying to navigate the emotional trauma of this year. This year has forced me to reconcile my internal struggles while also reckoning with my past.

When Covid hit the US in February, I was a part of a family trip to El Salvador. Not my family. But friends who felt like family. It was a beautiful, fun trip that felt different from others I’ve been on. Because I was in a place I knew next to nothing about. It felt like a true escape.

As escapist as that felt, it made feeling the reality of a worldwide pandemic even harder. I spent endless days of uneasiness, remembering my moms own plight and her eventual death from the last pandemic. It was driving me insane. Then I got it. And I thought it might be my time too. But It wasn’t.

The neverending isolation wasn’t easy. But in some ways it was because I spent most of my time quarantined with someone who I had been in a relationship with. It was complicated of course. Navigating the complexities of our relationship under crisis. But I was grateful for their presence.

I still loved this person I realized.

But they had moved on mentally, emotionally and of course, physically. It had been a long time coming for us. Due to my own stubborn inability to see that person, to acknowledge their pain, the mistakes I had made in the relationship, I sat by while they moved on and I said nothing. I never considered the possibility that this person who I had spent endless days, weeks, months and years with, would just leave. Not after everything. Not during or after the height of the pandemic we had survived together.

I was wrong.

Late into summer, they met someone and I fell apart. We had been better. They were happier. I thought we had a chance again. But I was too late.

On my birthday, I planned to tell them I wanted to try again. I wanted to fix all the mistakes I had made and we had made together. But I couldn’t. They moved on. And I was forced to face a new reality. One possibly without them in it.

So here we are almost in November. On the verge of an election. The palpable fear, sadness and grief still enveloping us all. I had a friend get a divorce. I had others struggle with the stark realities of Covid aftereffects. I had an aunts husband lose both his parents. Another friend, her mom. Incalculable losses. While I face my own grief. A different kind. Maneuvering a break up I didn’t know I never wanted. While living in the nightmare of another pandemic.

I’m tired emotionally and mentally. There have been bouts of anxiety. Too many days of depression and solitude. And now, as ever, uncertainty hanging over my head. Over us all.

I’m afraid of the future. Where I was once eternally hopeful. That’s what this year took from me. Should I consider myself fortunate, in comparison? Yes. But I still feel like I lost a piece of myself. And I’m not sure how or if it will come back.

It’s been a long year. So long.