Lost in the Crowd

I feel heavy yet empty at the same time. The world that I once knew around me has frozen in time, the silence, deafening, the numbness seeping in. I felt okay for a long time. Like that I could get through this and that I could occupy my time and make it out alive on the other side.

I found it easier than I had expected. I had always seen the world in a blur; running from one place to the other, waking up before the sun and racing it to work every day. Staying up late in a stuffy, college apartment, my legs thrown on my friend’s lap, we’d share a cup of water or a snack. We’d laugh. I lived life with a schedule that barely gave me a second to think. I was so, so happy.

Within one day that all changed. I knew that the fate of our society had slowly crept up on us, crept upon me. I knew that soon, like what we had seen in neighboring countries, we too would be confined to our houses. Cutting off contact from the people we’d laugh with every day, embrace, high five after a hard workout class, sit next to on the bus, exchange waves from down the hallway. Instead, we’d avoid the people around us, we’d buy toiletries in bulk, grocery shop knowing that it may be our last time outside, cancel plans that were set for far in advance.

The vivid colors and faces that I once saw every day slowly dimed, living became surviving, and laughter became short-lived. But somehow I was still okay. I separated the days with art projects, new recipe ideas, phone calls with friends. I’d take up new hobbies, I’d read more. I would manage this lifestyle because that’s who I was; someone who made the time I was living worth something, because, for me, productivity was the name of the game.

Milestones were beginning to go within the blink of an eye: trips with friends, summer camp, going abroad, concerts, my 21st birthday quietly looming in the future. Though I still made something of every day that passed. Pharmacy trips became big outings and long runs allowed me to analyze and internalize the state of the world around me. I still laughed on the phone with my friends. We made plans for future trips, the fun we’d have when this was all over; the way we’d cherish every second, and how life would become a never-ending adventure. I’d spend dinner time debating with my family, I’d watch movies in my parent’s queen bed.

But now there’s a hole in my heart that I don’t know how to fill. I float through the day like a lifeless being, going through the motions and hoping to feel something. My body is weighed down by those missed concerts, the road trips, the nights I took for granted in those old college dorms. I avoid those phone calls with friends, incapable of mustering up the joy and energy that were once central to my being. My spirit has been extinguished.

I have lost something. The feeling of being held by someone I love. The endless chatter and constant glee in the back of a run-down red school bus under the Martha’s Vineyard sun. The positive touch that we had always laughed about. The opportunity to grow into the woman that I know I can become with the people that know me best by my side in an environment that has already facilitated so much growth. I have lost the friendships that I would’ve made, the memories that I would’ve looked back on, longingly, years in the future. I’ve lost the me that I once knew, and that I worked so hard to love. The world is never as it has been, and will never be what it was.

This feeling of loss, of grief, may not leave for a very long time. The new friends are gone and the opportunities non-existence. The spirits we once knew and loved, whether still living on today or not, will forever be different, tainted, diluted.

I’ve managed to find some brightness amongst the darkness, and it is with that that I must continue. Driving aimlessly for hours, only for the rush of the fresh air and the windows down; to hear the music that I once loved redefine itself in that solitary space. Hearing the strum of an acoustic guitar promptly at 6 pm every Sunday, as my neighbor would play for his community until the sun left its last minutes of light. Reconnecting with old friends, looking back on memories, and catching up on the parts of our lives that the other person must have missed. I must fight and make it out alive on the other side, triumphantly.

Yes, life right now is bleak and uncertain; but this oblivion must be my call to action. I must use this time to love myself in a different space, to be creative, to learn to quiet my racing mind. I must learn to be the people that others need me to be, but also the person that I need myself to be. Whether the end of the world or the beginning of time, this is my time to define who I am.