005—Another Pandemic Loneliness Story
I noticed that whenever I came across news stories about stress, anxiety, and depression following the isolation, loneliness, and general trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic, I glossed over them. Rolled my eyes. Of course there’s been trauma. We don’t need to keep reading about it, I’d say to myself, indignantly. But sometimes it’s not about there being anything so cleverly new to say about a topic, rather it’s about showing how prevalent a topic is. To show just how much loneliness and depression and anxiety have infiltrated even the most stalwart and resilient of us. Maybe reading one account of a person losing it in the pandemic was heart-wrenching to read, and we’d empathize, but then easily move on, push it aside, and say, ‘man that sucks for them, good thing I didn’t suffer anything like that.’
And then a dozen, two dozen, three dozen-plus in-depth accounts later, over the three years since the start of the pandemic, coupled with the bald, stark statistics of death and anxiety and loneliness and depression, and you start to consider how, wow, this did really change people and society. Still: ‘Good thing I’m resilient and this didn’t affect me. Good thing I can easily handle change.’ And then, suddenly, you’re curled up on the bathroom floor with severe, sharp stomach pains brought on by chronic anxiety. And your doctor later points out your excessive coffee intake and poor eating and sleeping habits, and talks to you about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, suggesting the need for more community and connection with others. Suddenly, you realize what he’s saying is true: you still have some personal, self-reflection to do so you can recognize what you need as a human person. Suddenly, you realize you are part of those dozens, hundreds, thousands of accounts of loneliness and anxiety exacerbated by the pandemic.
Sometimes it’s not about the depth of a darkness, though goodness knows this event took many down the deepest wells of despair, the blackest of nights. Rather, sometimes it is that plus the sheer magnitude of darkness. A veil that extends forever you almost think it’s spherical, not flat. A bubble of sadness and hopelessness of which you long forgot where the emergency valve was, not a cloak you thought you could easily toss off whenever you wanted.
For the first year or so of the pandemic I lived in northern Virginia where I worked in federal government consulting on disaster recovery projects. At that time I worked on a COVID-19 recovery support contract for a federal agency. I had just gone back to live at home with my parents, who were living in Virginia at the time, after a year working in Puerto Rico in 2019 and the start of 2020 working in northern California. My time in Paradise (not a euphemism; it is the actual name of the town where the Camp Fire blazed through Butte County in 2018) was cut short by two weeks as whispers and then shouts of a deadly pandemic roared to the west coast of the US, and all over the world. The roads were eerily empty as I drove from Chico to the Sacramento airport, saying goodbye to the rows of cultivated almond trees, walnut trees, peach orchards and other crop farms throughout the Sacramento Valley, a light fog hanging over them. A bated breath over human civilization.
The air travel was even more unnerving. There couldn’t have been more than 200 people in the terminal that late-March day, and my flights to Washington, DC, each had less than five people. I think I was the only one on my connecting flight from Dallas to DCA. The few of us that were traveling—strictly to get home to loved ones and ride this thing out for who knows how long—wore two masks, N95s if lucky, and communicated mostly in nods and head shakes, taking only small sips of air so as not to breathe in whatever was going around.
For the first few months of the pandemic I worked mostly onsite at the client’s office in downtown DC. I was still rolling with the punches, finding everything very odd but not enough to throw me in a panic. There were a handful of others in the office—a mix of contractors and federal employees—who were allowed into the building after answering health questions and undergoing temperature checks, all while wearing masks, of course. As the months wore on, I moved to another floor, not realizing how much I missed the other five people I didn’t work with directly, but at least could see and hear and interact with. Sitting in a cold, drab, windowless office on an empty floor, I started to feel the loneliness that was only just beginning to be discussed in the news and social media. Going into an office with motion-sensor lights that were perpetually dimmed because there was no one there to make motion, it made me feel even lonelier. I’d cry at the desk or, if the client was in his office that day, cry in the women’s bathroom. So I requested to work from home, an apartment in Alexandria I moved into after my parents moved back home to Miami.
When I was still living with my parents I really relished the slowing down, and seemed to be doing fine—spending time with our dog Wilma, reading in the sun in the leafy backyard, making pasta from scratch, having barbecues, trying new chocolate cake recipes, having Zoom hangs with friends and family, going on 3-4-mile walks or jogs on the Washington and Old Dominion trail in Vienna, listening to more birdsong and to the Nostalgia Killer – Vol. 1 Spotify playlist, learning embroidery, and keeping the hope that whenever this thing was over, my canceled trip to the Inca Trail in Peru would be rescheduled.
Once my parents left, I stayed living in Virginia for another eight months on my own, totally alone. In November I contracted COVID for the first time and could barely move for five days, feeling out of it for a solid 12 days. I had Thanksgiving via Zoom with my family in Florida, heating up delivered Thanksgiving staples that I could barely taste. I had anxiety attacks and bouts of sadness. My grandmother suffered an injury from which she never recovered, her typically stable good health rapidly declining as she was in and out of outpatient centers and home care and hospice. And a cold, heavy, dark winter rolled through, dampening my desire to even go outside for a walk. Needless to say, I never want to go through a lonely pandemic winter alone, ever again. There were, of course, moments of happiness and peace and love and trying new things, but on the whole, I never want to go through that alone again. Never.
Still, I attributed most of that loneliness and unhappiness to not finding joy or meaning in my work, albeit finding immense gratitude (the gratitude is what kept me going at that job for another two years) for the job when so many others were struggling. However, that lack of joy and purpose was definitely part of the heaviness I felt, and I’m so glad I finally took the leap of faith to switch careers and pursue my creative passions full-time. Though what I’m realizing more and more now is how my loneliness was indeed exacerbated by the isolation of the pandemic. This realization seems ridiculous, I know. So obvious. But I truly thought I was somehow immune to it because I am pretty resilient, adaptable, flexible, and patient, and uber-introverted. Now, working and living at home alone, the undercurrent of loneliness from the isolation of the pandemic has risen to a white-capped ferocity that is demanding attention. My tiny studio apartment is a bit too small for a dog or even a cat (and I’m more of a dog person). I do have plants, so maybe more plants? Maybe a fish? I was also considering volunteering at the botanical garden or maybe doing beach cleanup. And maybe a drawing or pottery class! Just gotta stay open and willing to change, and be open to the changes life forces upon you. Those are often the best opportunities to learn and grow.
The other day in my yoga class, the instructor helped me stretch in a seated wide-legged forward fold and told me to breathe deeply. I inhaled a great deal. “Now exhale!” she said, a bit perplexed. I realized I hadn’t exhaled much then, or much at all over the tremendous change of the last three years.
Here’s to long inhales and even longer exhales.
<3
This week I’ve been:
Reading: This heartwarming story about inyeon, or fate (kismet is never not around). Still reading Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway and Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack. I also read:
The Accidental Innkeeper: How an American Novelist Became a Hotelier in Guatemala from The New York Times
Authentic photos of American skate culture over two decades from i-D
Wes Anderson on his new ’50s-set film ‘Asteroid City,’ AI and all those TikTok videos from AP News
Scientists Unveil a More Diverse Human Genome from The New York Times
‘Dealing with kidnappers is easy!’ A hostage negotiator reveals the secrets that can transform your life from The Guardian
She’s Out to Save Rare Wildflowers, but First She Has to Find Them from The New York Times
The Moral Case for Working Less from The Atlantic
Salman Rushdie honored at PEN America gala, first in-person appearance since stabbing from AP News
Ramit Sethi’s 5 lessons on how to get rich – from his new Netflix series from MarketWatch
More than two dozen cities and states are suing Big Oil over climate change – they just got a boost from the US Supreme Court from The Conversation
Forty Cannes film festivals viewed through one photographer's lens from Reuters
Be a Schedule Builder, Not a To-Do List Maker from Nir and Far
How I’ve Learned to Deal with Clutter, from a Hoarder’s Daughter from The Good Trade
99 Ways To Care For Your Physical Health (That Don’t Center on Weight Loss) from The Good Trade
The Ten Most Beautiful Hikes in the World from Outside
Writing: I wrote and submitted a pitch on multigenerational family travel to People en Español about my travel with my mom and grandma to Colombia in February. There will be pan de yucas! Caserolas! Caldo! Arepas! Charming colonial farm mountain towns! And hopefully you will be able to read it in its full glory if they accept the pitch :)
I’ve been incorporating feedback from my trusted readers into the revision of my debut novel, Julia’s Orchids. I’ve also been revising my query letter draft to pitch to agents. I heard back from the only agent, so far, that I’ve pitched the novel to. She passed on it. The first agent passed. First of many, I keep reminding myself, until the right one comes along. Once I find the perfect round hole for my round peg, as one friend from my writing group told me after I mentioned the rejection, I’ll really know what round means, she said. Another friend from the group also mentioned a novelist she knows who submitted 350 queries. 350! She then got 250 rejections, and 30 requests to read the full manuscript (when sending queries to agents, either by email or an online submission form, they typically request to see the first 2-3 chapters or 40-50 pages). And then all but one of those 30 passed on her novel. It’s a numbers game, for sure. It reminds me of when I applied to hundreds of—at least 200—jobs right after graduating graduate school in May 2014. I got called back for interviews with, maybe, five employers. Only one made me an offer (of $39k/year) by late July, which I accepted because it was at least something. I was still hyperfocused on this singular path to success, had over $100k in grad student loan debt, my loan money was running out, needed to pay rent and bills, and loan repayments were starting in three months’ time. So I do know about playing a numbers game. I learned to be pleasantly surprised when I heard back from a job I applied for, even if it was a rejection. I had expected it, at that point. By the time the interviews and the sole job offer came along, I was reverential to this meager salary in a cubicle where I worked easily 10-hour days, often scarfing down lunch at my desk.
Watching: I watched Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss on Peacock with my friend Itzamme, her boyfriend Radi, and their growing, precious kitty Mishka. Such a feel-good show; watching this with friends was exactly the balm I needed. Radi is Bulgarian so you know we had to start with the Bulgaria episode, which features the country as one of the most unhappiest countries (lol). We then went back to the first episode, which features Iceland, and we reminisced about our trip there last September and how we can’t wait to go back. I’m this close to moving there and running my own sheep farm on the outskirts of Reykjavik. I’ve also been watching the NBA playoffs of course! Those Games 4 and 5 were wild, don’t know what happened there. The Heat are going to finish this thing off in Game 6 on Saturday and NBA Finals here we come!
Scrolling through my YouTube homepage, I came across Suggested Videos that the algorithm—not kismet this time, I’m almost certain—knows I’d binge: Tarot horoscope videos. I was almost too embarrassed (almost) to tell you this was a guilty pleasure of mine, an addiction that got pretty bad during the pandemic. Their vague yet always hopeful prophecies helped get me through the pandemic as well as a long-term monotonous task at work, the latter of which I now realize also helped weather the uncertainty of the pandemic. These videos, the YouTubers have their own distinct style yet nearly all announce to ‘take whatever resonates and leave the rest behind.’ Some use multiple decks and ring chime bells for a quick meditation. Some are straight-shooters speaking directly into the camera and referencing commenters or giveaway contests. Some only show their hands and light candles and squire in bowls of water. Most have tens of thousands of subscribers, many have hundreds of thousands. It’s a thing. Then again, YouTube is the land of obscure niches and all the things.
These videos helped get me through the darkness of wildly uncertain times, through to the other side. But now, I’m here on this other side (just barely, it seems) and my body, mind, and spirit are going haywire—Mayday! Mayday!—trying to figure out a new normal. Though, on the surface, it looks similar to how it was before—we no longer wear masks, infection rates and deaths have gone down, and cities and travel and businesses have picked back up—it’s different now. A different world. And it’s like we’re all emerging from this underground bunker rubbing our eyes adjusting to the bright light, seeing what’s left in this world and how can we make a name for ourselves. Even taking the opportunity to make a new name, if that’s what we want and we’re ready for.
Photographing/Photo editing: Nearly done with editing the Iceland photos. Here’s another little sneak peek because I love them so much.
xo,
Jessica ♾️