As I write this, it’s March 13, which is the day our county in New York announced it was shutting down in 2020. Many have documented this milestone beautifully, in articles, essays and blog posts this past week. (Comment below with your favorites, and definitely share if you wrote one yourself!) I agree that the day calls for a retrospective, but I’ve been struggling to find the right tone. Even though there’s so much hope and reason for optimism, things are still complicated. Life feels like such a struggle, and also I’m very grateful for everything I have. How do I write a retrospective that encompasses both feelings? How do I hit that balance between miserably unhappy and saccharinely positive?
The truth is, I’m not ready to look back on this year with any kind of perspective. We may be at the tail end of pandemic life, but we’re not there yet. Only time will give me the ability to reflect. However, I do have a way to document this milestone. I have written in my journal every single day of the last 365. So today I’m going to share fragments of my own thoughts from this time.
March 16: Day 1 of not going to school, day 3 of family quarantine, and today I’m feeling very very lucky. We have everything we need. We are still getting paid (for now); my children are young and beautiful and happy to be at home with us; we have all the resources we need to teach Edwin; we love each other and are happy to have time together; we have the right temperament for this situation; we have the right amounts of creativity and ingenuity; we are all healthy.
March 26: Still taking everything just one day at a time. It’s so scary out there. I can’t think about actually getting coronavirus… if I think about it I feel terrified. Imagine thinking that you might die. Imagine not being able to breathe. Imagine being put on a respirator… imagine that you need one and they don’t have one for you.
I can’t imagine. So I should not try. There’s no point in scaring myself… although I do have to get those feelings out somehow, because otherwise when this is over I’m going to go into a huge depression. IF this is over. This might be the new normal for a year.
April 1: I already feel slower, more in the present, and closer to nature. I’m noticing things even better than I was before: the bird calls, the slow growth on the trees, the nuances of the weather and the sun. I get to watch spring up close this year.
April 3: Yesterday was another rough day. I cried a few times trying to do the welcome video before I gave up and managed to get into a stride with the lesson videos [for asynchronous band lessons]. I’m stressed because there are so many unknowns and I don’t know the implicit expectations; I’m feeling trauma because it’s so much harder to keep myself in my little bubble anymore.
April 22: I dread that moment of waking up every morning, when I am hit by the same thought: it’s a pandemic, and we’ll be doing the same thing as yesterday.
May 5: Death toll surpassing Vietnam. Bodies stacked in refrigerated cars. Funerals where almost no one can attend, and people can’t hug. Teaching on a screen. Stores closed. An invisible disease that strikes everyone differently and incubates for days. No one can get tested, so we don’t know if we have it. It’s insanity.
July 6: I have to pretend to be strong. I have to pretend to be okay on the outside. That’s a choice I can make, because I’m tired of feeling like I’m falling apart. And maybe it’ll actually make things better.
August 6: Last night the only way I got to sleep was by imagining myself as a character in a farcical movie called, “2020: It Just Keeps Getting Worse!” I heard the voiceover talking about me in January, then moving through spring, and summer. Eleanor in the ER. The pandemic hitting. Quarantine. Grieving the loss of so many spring events. Online learning. George Floyd. Eleanor’s periodic fevers. A tree falling on our house! Worrying about my job, my schedule, my salary, the future of band. It’s a LOT. And right now I feel like I’m holding all of it in my heart.
September 16: Long hard day with some good moments. I was feeling the stress of the world today at points: political division, violence, systemic racism, the California fires, the coronavirus of course… 2020 is so bad, so hard, so stressful, but it’s sometimes easy to forget how much it’s affecting me because I’m just trying to live my life within the parameters I have right now.
If I’m reading this years from now, I hope I remember that 2020 was so hard for the country, the absolute worst year in my lifetime, even worse than 2001, because at least in 2001 we all felt united, even if we made mistakes and were afraid. We were together. We’re not together now… well, some of us are. But we don’t know how to do it right. We’re a mess.
But I hope I’ll also remember how 2020 made my family stronger. How at the beginning of the pandemic, we were panicking about food and cleanliness, and we figured it all out. How I had actual nightmares about how to keep the kids entertained and not go crazy myself during all those long days in March and April, but we got through them and maybe found some extra inner peace, too. How my writing got better. How I became more flexible and resilient. How I had the gift of time to spend with my children, who were at such amazing ages for growth and companionship and love and affection. How Nick and I bonded more, laughed more, cooperated more, and fought better.
And I hope the whole country comes out of this mess stronger and with new social safety nets. I want reform.
September 19: RBG died last night.
Can 2020 get any worse? Just… how?
It’s like America has to lose, over and over, in order to come to a true crucible of learning and change.
Now:
That’s a small sample of my journal entries, but it seems to track the complicated and competing feelings I’ve had throughout the time. Are things getting better? Yes. In just 5 days, I’ll be able to hug my parents again, two weeks after we all received our second shot. In 8 days, I’ll be teaching my students in person, and my son will be in school 4 days a week. The Relief Plan has been passed. The weather is improving. Life is improving. Soon, there will be more friend-gatherings, more family holidays, more events. It may be a glorious, freedom-filled summer.
But there are many reasons not to forget what happened this past year. There are many reasons to hold it in our hearts. And time is needed to process, reflect, and heal.
