A year, a year, it’s been a year. We’re all thinking about this, aren’t we. Where we were a year ago when we knew. When we knew that something big was happening to us, out of our control — something that was shifting the ground under our feet, cancelling our plans, sending us indoors to scrub all the surfaces, separating us from friends and loved ones, making the world go quiet.
A year ago, I was so busy, so squeezed for time, so exhausted, stretched so thin, that when everything got cancelled — the X Page workshop, soccer, school and kids’ activities, the gym — what I felt in the immediate aftermath was simple relief. I was so tired, it seemed I’d been operating on the verge of collapse. Suddenly, I could sleep, and sleep is what I did, sleeping, then staggering around in a blur, checking twitter a million times a day as if I could discover an accurate prediction of the future, or figure out how to assess risk. I suppose we’ve been trying to figure that out all year. A year on, we know more, collectively, about the risks and about what mitigates risk, including wearing masks, which we didn’t understand in those early months when instead we were bleaching the countertops and sanitizing the doorhandles and washing our hands till the skin cracked.
It wasn’t until just now, as the anniversary has come upon us, that I’ve recognized my own feelings of grief and loss. It’s been a year of pause. We’ve experimented, yes, we’ve tried new ways to interacting, we’ve baked sourdough bread, and gone for hundreds of walks, and helped each other out. Some of this is working quite well: I love doing yoga online in my own little studio; I love chatting with Grandma on Zoom. And I’ve loved having this extra year with all my children still living at home.
But … but … for me, as for many of us, I’ve lost some part of my identity, I’ve lost work and volunteer opportunities, my kids have lost much of their spontaneous social interactions with peers, and I have too.
Many of us have been more alone. Or, we’ve seen people we love struggle, being more alone, and we’ve been unable to help in the ways we ordinarily would and could.
And while I’ve learned a lot that I want to keep from this past year, I’ve learned, too, that it’s important to acknowledge what I’m carrying. And the truth is that this year has felt strangely empty, like lost time. I don’t know how to explain it. But there it is. Looking back across this year is like looking at a scene in which almost nothing moves. It’s quiet. I can hear the wind and the birds. It’s eerie, too. There’s something on the edges of this quiet that is unsettling; uncertainty; a continual unfolding in all directions toward an unknown horizon. That’s what I see when I visualize this past year.
Others will have a very different picture in their minds.
I haven’t been anywhere near the front lines. Those stories of this year would be completely different in tone and energy, learning, loss and grief.
Here’s the thing. I don’t know what I want to do next.
Part of me wants to burst with the coming hope of spring and vaccines and reopenings. Part of me waits, wary and cautious, unwilling to venture any guesses, or name any desires.
And part of me floats above all this, and says, hey, this day, this hour, this moment is what you’ve got, and you are safe, you are loved, you are not alone. Let yourself be here, unfolding out toward unseen horizons.
xo, Carrie