365 Days of Quarantine: Loneliness, Love, and Lessons Learned

“For me, the tools that I relied upon to feel well often looked less like treatment and more like the ingredients that make up a full, joyful life: the friends I saw for long, intimate dinners; the work events that made me feel purposeful and accomplished; even the affirming gym I went to in the mornings…” — Sam Lansky, Time, June 2020

When journalist and author Sam Lansky (Broken People) candidly wrote about his emotional experience living in lockdown, he was three months into the quarantine. Back then, it was reported that 40% of Americans said their mental health had been negatively affected by COVID-19. Last March, the call volume to the national hotline run by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services jumped nearly 900% higher than the same month in 2019. Back then, people were already hitting walls, particularly those who lived alone and only had their personal demons to keep them company, those who had certain luxuries stripped away, and those who lived in a bubble of self-obsession that only grew thicker, more impenetrable, the longer the lockdown lingered.

As we approach the one-year mark of this cataclysmic moment in history, one must ask: Where are those people now? How are they doing 365 days later?

The question “How are you?” carries so much weight these days. You can’t really small talk your way around it in the usual way we’ve been socially conditioned to do. Those three little words now seem to be a more sincere expression of care and interest. And as someone who identifies as a member of the aforementioned groups, I can only answer for myself: I am relatively fine. This is a response I frequently give to those I see often and regularly talk to as well as those with whom I have less frequently communicated.

But if we’re really going to get into it, I have to elaborate.

First, before the quarantine, I occasionally practiced the art of gratitude. Now? I am a daily disciple of it, even if it’s something I briefly note to myself at any given minute of the day. Being grateful has become a bigger part of my outlook as I become increasingly aware of my privilege, especially during a horrifically difficult period like the one we’re desperately trying to move past. The proof is there, clear as day: I still have a full-time job with the capabilities of working from home. I still have my health. I am still able to speak to my parents and even splurge on a sushi dinner every once in a while.

But all of that doesn’t mean I am well.

Like many others, I am not the person I was at the beginning of March 2020. The wall that most people hit? I hit it too. And then I managed to climb over it. But another wall was always on the horizon, and I would hit it again. And again. But the wall I am approaching now seems different. It’s taller, wider, and right now I am too exhausted to conquer it. I am beyond Pandemic Fatigue at this point. However, this isn’t a cry for help. This is more of an acknowledgement, a reminder to tell myself that it’s okay if it will take me longer to get through this phase of #quarantinelife, even if reports indicate that there is light at the end of this very dark tunnel in the form of a more robust vaccine distribution.

Over the last year, I, along with millions of Americans, experienced those proverbial ups and downs – emphasis on the downs. March 13, 2020 will be a day that will personally live in infamy, just two days after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic. It was a Friday. It was the last day I would be surrounded by coworkers on a daily basis. It was the last day I would I have regular commute, eat in a restaurant, sit in a movie theater with a bucket of buttery popcorn, surrounded by friends, or get dressed up for a friend’s birthday party at a crowded bar where I would pay twelve dollars for a vodka tonic.

Like many foolish humans at the time, I thought I was ready for a break from regularly scheduled life. Stay at home for several weeks, catch up on my reading, and finally finish The Crown? Sure! I even made an Instagram post bragging about how I was born to explore the great indoors, laughing at those busybodies who didn’t know what to do with themselves when gyms, bars, and boutiques were all shuttered. However, there was a loneliness and depression that swiftly developed because, days before the lockdown, I had been nursing a broken heart from a relationship that never was and facing realizations about myself that truly scared me for the first time in my adult life. This emotional gut-punch was only exacerbated by the social isolation brought on by COVID-19.

Then, five months into the quarantine, I consciously chose to leave my comfy, beloved apartment that I shared with one of my best friends for five out of the thirteen years I resided there. I decided it was time for a change, to finally live on my own, in a space of my own — even during a global pandemic that already proved to be extremely isolating. Any decision made was a risk, and I was making a big one.

Again, I told myself, I can do this! Being an only child, I had always found ways to keep myself occupied and entertained. I learned how to be independent at an early age. When I was nine, I was given my own set of house keys to let myself in after walking two short blocks home from school — long before I had ever heard the term “latch key kid.” As a young, budding writer, I have memories of being left to my own devices on an occasional Saturday afternoon while my mother worked and my father played golf. I see flashes of me sitting by the window in our apartment, scribbling away in a five-subject spiral notebook, building up a collection of my own short stories. Pencil and paper became my constant companions.

This independence carried me throughout my adolescence and young adulthood. I began to cook dinners for myself and for my parents who both worked full-time jobs. I lost myself in the pages of paperback novels, a true bookworm in every sense of the word, reading eight to ten books a month. I created my own little bubble. I learned how to rely on myself.

I am bringing up all of this because a part of me still feels like that preteen lone wolf in the early 90s. Only now, I am living in a new Age of Isolation as a single and childless adult teetering on the edge of a potential mid-life crisis brought on by dark thoughts, non-stop nostalgia, and melancholy obsessions courtesy of Too Much Time On My Hands.

By the end of 2020 (and throughout a very bleak January), I felt like I didn’t know where the rest of my adult life was heading because the world as I knew it, along with its socioeconomic infrastructures and societal norms, was crumbling around me, exposing both a personal and national existential crisis. (Of course, doomscrolling on my phone played its part in all of this, too.) However, despite the constant craptacular events in the world, I learned to shift my thinking, to focus on what is next, what is still possible.

I look forward to seeing what a post-corona world will look like. I want to know if most people will have used this collective trauma we experienced to learn the lessons they needed to learn; I hope most people will have learned those lessons. I, for one, know myself more than I ever did before, and I’m sure I will continue to learn more about myself. Right now, I know I will continue to hold onto my family and soak up every moment I still have with them. I know which friends mean the most to me and which friends I appreciate more after reconnecting and rekindling our relationships with regular check-ins and FaceTimes.

I know that I will not be guilted into feeling unproductive while glancing at other people’s success stories on my feeds. You lost 25 pounds? Great. You redecorated your bedroom in one weekend? Well done you. Me? I finally finished all four seasons of The Good Place. (And sure, I finished writing the first fifty pages of my next novel.)

I know that there may be a second coming of the Roaring Twenties, and I will wholeheartedly participate in those festivities. I want to dance my ass off to a Dua Lipa song — anything from the jam-filled Future Nostalgia at this point. I now know that I am an extroverted introvert. I love to be surrounded by a good crowd, feed off its energy, and get inspired while, at the same time, enjoy some solitude and take some time for introspection.

I know that my love for a well-baked chocolate chip cookie is deep and real.

I know that I will continue to see a therapist and continue to use my meditation apps so I remember how to breathe when life feels a little suffocating. I know that I will give enormous, extra-long hugs to the people I love when I can give them enormous, extra-long hugs. I know that I have so much love to give, and I look forward to that love being reciprocated.

I look forward to reintroducing to my life all of the ingredients that make a full and joyful life.

Happy Pandemmiversary.