I haven’t written a lot about the pandemic this past year — mostly because everyone’s aware of it and pretty done with it.
I’ve been as stressed as anyone else, but I finally reached my breaking point last night.
I was listening to a band that my sister and I saw in concert on March 13th, 2020. It was my birthday gift to myself to go to the show with her, my birthday is St. Patrick’s day, and the band is an Irish band we both really enjoy. One of their traditional songs came on, and it hit me that I haven’t done anything fun or seen my family in a year. (Okay, I went camping with a friend in September, but that’s it — literally it.)
Usually I go camping a few times a year, go on road trips to see my sister in the Twin Cities, go hang out with my sister in Wisconsin — I love getting out and doing fun things. And my sisters are two of my best friends, visits with them are always a gas.
This year has been hard on the outgoing socialite that I am. I figured it was gonna suck, I figured we’d get through it, but I didn’t realize how bad it was going to suck until that song came on — almost a year after I’d last heard it live.
It’s a happy, fun song, and made me think of clapping my hands to the beat and whooping and jumping up and down. The energy of a crowd all listening to the same music and getting a kick out of it, the performers’ faces as they get into it too. Listening to the band’s CDs on the drive home and everyone singing along.
And listening to this happy, fun song, I burst into tears.
I’ve had it. I’ve really had it. This has been hard for me. I miss my friends, I miss my family, I miss doing fun things. My husband and I are fighting more often, just because we’re both stressed out. Writing has been an escape for me, but it hasn’t been enough. I need to actually get away.
Work has been tense. Home has been tense. Going anywhere has been nigh-impossible. I need a break so bad, but none is coming. Maybe once we get a good roll-out on the vaccine things can get better, but that’s months away yet.
Listen. I collected myself. I cried for a good while, and then I wiped my eyes, and I thought about how this can’t be forever. Worst case scenario, everyone who might die will, and people will be left with a certain amount of immunity, and every year some folks will die but it will be less and less — but that’s very medieval, and it’s not going to come to that. We have a vaccine, we have facemasks, we know how to prevent spreading illness (whether we do it or not). Things are going to get better. Maybe not as soon as I’d like, maybe not soon enough to prevent more people dying, but it will happen.
And in the meantime, if some of us need to break down crying over a happy song, well, I guess that’s all part of what it takes to survive.
