Untitled Pandemic Journal

Day One- Friday

My sister is coming home. She’s been in Scotland for I don’t know how long- 6 months. My mother told me this morning and I saw the picture of my quarantine life shift, I saw this seemingly never ending routine, the one I had curated and settled into and been quite content with shift.

I can’t say that I’ve been content the whole time. Actually one thing that quarantine has showed me is there is no ideal. I’ve had a few options to me and I’ve been making do with this one. I could be in Boston in my apartment which I share with 3 other people. We are not friends, just roommates. I don’t have a car, we live in a crowded part of the city, and I have bad Wi-Fi in my room. I imagine it would be difficult, especially as my job as a teacher has me only working about twenty hours a week. I don’t know what I would do with that time. I could stay at my partner’s house in Boston, but he works sixty hours a week, is hardly home and when he is, goes to bed early. He lives in the middle of a loud house with people I don’t particularly care for- not ideal. Or I could be here, where I have been for the last two months, with my parents, 2 out of my 3 siblings, in our childhood home. It has been mostly pleasant, we've fallen into a WFH routine that allows us all our space. We eat dinner together and have 4 cars for 5 people which is plenty when the order is stay at home. They live in a farm town, with lots of hiking and a winding river. We kayak. It’s the most ideal, but even then. For all those amenities we are locked up with ourselves, the people who have probably the most prejudices against us, the most twisted and in-depth perspectives on each other. I guess some call this a family. At times, our old habits and roles and nasty ways of speaking to each other come through from our adolescence and in those instances, I feel how unideal this is too, and I take a shower or go for a walk, and think through where else I could be. My apartment? Jacob’s? Here? Nothing is ideal. The first time I realized this I felt scared, alone, desperate, but soon after, almost a comfort. I wasn’t making the wrong choice in staying in this house with all these ghosts. I was making the best choice I could, and in the end, my body, myself, was the only reliable shelter I had. And I couldn’t turn on that now.

Day Two- Saturday

New day. I didn’t sleep much last night. I had a dream that Jacob and I were on a bus from Boston to Rhode Island. The bus driver pulled over to make a stop and there was a food cart selling pizza. He said to everyone on the bus ok let's play pizza hut and they all got off excitedly to get the pizza. We stayed on the bus, not thinking it worth the risk. In another part of my dream my old neighbor gave me a tour of her new house. I tried to figure out which room was hers. A few weeks ago I looked up the house on Zillow and tried then. 

I couldn't sleep with everything in my head. My sister coming home, my employer announced 25 people (28% of our workforce) is getting laid off on Monday. I miss Jacob.

I've been meditating every day for the last 41 days, the course I just finished was 10 days on navigating change. Maybe I should take it again because all the change that came yesterday seemed to ride with me into the night and I didn’t handle it well.

It's really nice today. I might try and find a lake at which to go float.

Day Three- Sunday

I met Jacob in the middle, between my parents’ house in CT and Boston. We met at a state park I used to go to as a kid. We picnicked by the water, kayaked and floated around. I told him I hadn’t been sleeping. I thought it was mostly because I missed him, because we are doing layoffs at work this week, because I miss my bed. The idea of the not ideal.

We talked about moving to California. In my mind we would do this is another year, but I think, having this space from our daily routines it is seeming more appealing though less practical. I know if I keep my job tomorrow, I should stay at it. I think we are both viewing the potential of a layoff as liberating, permission to go now, to not wait. Jacob will be done at the farm in November, but could leave earlier. I said I think when you work and have a routine it's really easy to just keep going, to not ask the hard questions, but having this break it's like we have this opportunity to think, am I happy is this what I want, do we have time to waste?

On another note, we were right by the summer camp I used to go to. We went out and walked through the woods, spread out a blanket and watched the trees. The camp announced last week they wouldn’t open for the summer. I took him on a long walk through the main part of camp, the upper camp, showing him these trails and places that were my home for 12 summers, half my life. It felt so sad to see it all, not serving its purpose.

Day Four- Monday

I called Jacob this morning, because an email implied I was basically going to keep my job. He said "cool" and I said I think you were hoping I wouldn’t have a choice but to move with you. And he said so you're definitely staying then?

Today was rough. We laid off 28% (25 people) from work. My boss and the head of HR on the phone were so sad, they'd said they'd been on calls all day, sad calls, blubbering. Every team had lost people except ours. The company is shifting from a focus on growth to a focus on sustaining, so most teams were cut in half. I started crying on the call. It wasn't that I wasn't relieved, but the overriding sentiment was just how sad and unhopeful the situation was. 1 in 6 people in the country out of work. What were their prospects?

By the end of the day I was supposed to let my landlord know if I was renewing or not, per our binding lease. I wasn’t ready to decide, Jacob and I were talking about me moving in. In the final hour I sent her a desperate email asking for 3 more days, she graciously gave me 5.

Day Five- Tuesday

The world is ending around us it seems. The protests are continuing, raging, and it is just as much online as it is offline. On one hand, people have time to focus on it because everything else is stopped. On another, there is some showboating on social media, posting for your brand.

I read today: it is a privilege to educate yourself on racism as opposed to experience it. My sister is younger, a starting out teacher, and she is asking me what she can do. I tell her that I think one thing she can do that will have the most impact is figure out how to bring this into her classroom over the next twenty years. Unfortunately that's not post-able for our generation so leaves her feeling like it's not enough.

I worry I am not doing enough.

We spent the day rearranging the house for mom and dad's anniversary. We’d been planning a party but cancelled it. We made them a collage of postcards, of all the places they had been in 30 years together. We made them a custom puzzle of their life. We made them a 30 minute video that they cried the whole way through with messages from friends and families. We did real good and it was nice amidst all this to have some love and happiness put back into the world. 

Day Six- Wednesday

Got on top of work, talked about what we can do for our students, in our roles as support people in the school. Hosted a call with students later. Social media is relentless, the protests are everywhere. I feel guilty not being able to stomach it all, but I keep hearing 'you can't pour from an empty cup.’ I think taking the time to regroup and get a handle on this will make me a more effective ally in the long run. 

Day Seven- Thursday

The world is a mess but this morning I am feeling more rejuvenated than I have all week. 

Day Eight- Friday

There was a protest downtown, in our very small white town. I went with mom and sister. We chanted and lined the road, holding our signs to the cars that passed. It got off to a rocky start, you could tell we were all listeners, without much to say on the subject. One of the teens running the protest would shout out a call and we wouldn't know what the response was.

We marched for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in silence. A mother cried. At the end of the march she got up and said none of us would really know the reality she faced, that one day her son would go from being handsome to threatening. The fear that comes every time he walks out the door. While she was speaking her son ran up to her, he hugged her when she put the megaphone down.

We came back from the protest and I was so sad. My brother and sister asked what was wrong and I said well it's not exactly a happy reason we're all coming together. My mother came home and said you thought that was sad? I thought it was so good to see so many people out and supporting and listening for the first time. My mother and I fall in different places on the spectrum of radical change.

I read a tweet the other day that from mostly local budgets $100 billion is spent on police, and $80 billion is spent on incarceration. The next tweet was for perspective, it would cost 34 billion to eradicate homelessness and 20 billion for free college.

My mother doesn't agree with defunding the police, I said what does it mean to you? She said abolish, and I said what about less money? I read another post that said reform isn't the answer, it usually means more money for more weapons.

It takes twice the amount of hours to be a certified hairdresser as it does a cop. 

Most cities are now having officers work with no days off in light of the protests, 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week. I call that a disaster waiting to happen. How do we trust people to act with level heads with that type of stress and exhaustion? It is a war mentality. They are at war.

Day Nine- Saturday

I woke up this morning with faint dreams of Italy. We watched call me by your name last night because I wanted to escape. While I've been in quarantine I’ve been home longer than I have since I was in high school. 

I’ve been daydreaming of Italy and Hawaii and all the places I want to go. It's strange dreaming and navigating a future with a partner.

I had a slow morning, having coffee and talking with mom about what's going on in the world right now. 

I spent the late morning and early afternoon in a kiddie pool, floating and listening to long interviews with Alicia Keys and America Ferrera- both incredible women. In quarantine more than ever before I’ve found myself fantasizing about life as a writer. Listening to Alicia Keys discuss her own struggles with her creative process was so liberating. Lately, the only resounding thing in my head is the voice saying I’m not good enough. Sometimes I feel like my parents raised me in such a conventional way. Seeing my life with Jacob just go so predictably that I worry I will never actually put myself out there enough. I’m comforted by the way he supports me and wants this for me, the way that no matter what else I am doing in my life, I can’t shake this desire to make something- to tell a story.

Day Ten- Sunday

Spent the morning hiking with Allie and Mom, trying to forget the world.

Spent the afternoon cleaning out Allie's room trying to be productive.

It's not a bad life I’m living here, or a bad problem to have, but my days are so open, even my workdays and the world so bleak I am finding it hard to stay motivated. 

Day Eleven- Monday

The tension in the house is ripe. I think it's making my time at home more stressful, the most stressful it's been. My parents are on such different sides of this. My mother in her older middle age has become much more liberal and open. My father has become so narrow, and anti-establishment. Right now they're in the other room, and he's talking about broad-brushing. 

My mom is explaining the difference between dismantling and defunding.

I saw a funny meme yesterday that said, everyone wants to dismantle the police, but think about then who will you call when you're scared to have someone show up 2 hours later, with a notepad, and never follow up.

Dad: all these people see is what the media puts before them.

Day Twelve- Tuesday

Day Thirteen- Wednesday

Day Fourteen- Thursday

Went to Boston to see Jacob- only a block from my apartment which I still pay for, and I didn’t go inside. 

Day Fifteen- Friday

Jacob and I drove up to Cyrena’s house to go to the beach. The beaches in MA are closed except to town residents, it seems similar in NH but she lives in the town so we parked in her driveway and crossed the dunes.

It was a beautiful day.

We boogie boarded and ate strawberries, we swam and sunbathed.

We drove back the hour to his house.

Jacob said to me standing in his kitchen, I feel like all week I am coasting, I go to work I come home and I just kind of hang, there's not a real depth to my feelings. You’re here and I’m just more emotionally intimate and open with you. So I feel like its opening all this other stuff. 

Like a trickle I said. Exactly he said. It’s just all coming so I’m trying to put a wall up.

Jacob heard just two weeks ago that his close friend had died suddenly, a heart attack at 26, standing in her parent’s kitchen, during a pandemic.

Day Sixteen- Saturday

Jacob and I had a slow morning, this weekend was our first time waking up together in 3 months. The room we shared at my parents’ house had twin beds. It was nice to roll over and find him next to me.

I gave him a haircut in the backyard so he would look nice for the funeral next weekend. He asked if I wanted to walk to the store, get some sparkling wine, and just relax for the afternoon.

I made us white wine spritzers because we accidentally bought flat wine, and we sat on his front porch with apple and rhubarb crisp between us, as the wind blew the soft day by.

I told him I’d begun day dreaming about moving.

We couldn’t work it out to live together this upcoming year, and where the conversation a few weeks earlier started with hesitation, we were both now disappointed it hadn’t worked out. We planned to use the year to gear up for a bigger move, back to California.

I told him about my day dreaming- about how I’m quitting my job next June, want to go to Hawaii to see Haley if she's still there, I want to go to Spain to see Jan. I told him about my friend’s Instagram post the other day, how he and his partner moved to the bay a year ago, and now they lived on a boat in the marina near Alameda.

He talked about moving back to Sacramento in to start farming again. We got ourselves around to him going in the spring and getting settled, me joining him in the fall. Maybe going to Petaluma, a more centrally located spot to the coast and the valley.

At the end of the conversation he said I feel like I have something to look forward to.

Day Seventeen- Sunday

I stayed a night longer than I planned at Jacob’s, and was glad I did. I made it home and spent the day catching up with my mom. She had the house to herself for two days, and had the night before watched 13th. She had me donate 200 dollars to the national bailout fund. She told me about one boy in it who spent 3 years in prison, because his family couldn’t get 10,000 dollars for bail, he hadn’t even been charged. 3 years after he got out, he killed himself. She said she didn’t think she would ever forget. That night we watched Just Mercy, and it was like something out of the 50s that actually happened in the 90s. She said while we watched, is there no such thing as justice?

Earlier in the day, a woman sent my mother an email. She had reached out earlier in the week, demanding to know what our school board was doing to build a more diverse faculty in our school system (my mother is on the board.) Mom had replied with the tactics they were imploring, but noted that it was challenging to build a diverse teacher workforce in a place like New England or Connecticut. 

The woman replied, irate at such a comment- telling my mother she needed to check her own bias if she was operating under the principle that they couldn’t find qualified people of color to take these jobs.

My mother was shook, as we talked through what she had meant by the comment. Diversity in the CT teacher workforce is evidently low- diversity in teacher workforce across the country is low, and perhaps a person of color’s first choice isn’t to come work in our extremely white town, to teach mostly white children. Perhaps, our community- for all its monolithic demographics, isn’t as welcoming as we want it to be. 

 We didn’t put most of this in the email, but rather relied on the facts we could find. In 2016, only 3.4% of teachers in CT were black or Hispanic. Of the 100+ other boards my mother was connected to in the state, she said they all struggled with diverse recruitment. She clarified that she didn’t mean it was impossible, but yes challenging.

I looked up the woman on Facebook. She grew up in Massachusetts, on the south shore near Boston, one of the most notably segregated cities in the country. She attended college in Connecticut, and was raising her family in our very white town.

I said to my mother, the protest in town made me sad last week, because I didn’t want all these white women, who have chosen to live in this white community, to make themselves feel like they actually did enough yet. This woman who had emailed my mother had imposed her own narrow idea onto a comment about challenges in recruitment, under the antiquated delusion that to build diversity white people need only open the gates they have locked, and people of color who have been lining up will walk through. This is so much more complicated than that. It comes with more affordable housing, targeted outreach, recruitment, and equity building, not being afraid to ask why- why may a person of color not want to live here? Ask yourself that question, and then work on addressing the answer.

Day Eighteen- Monday

They gave us the day off work for mental health and self-care. I went to the river with Ashley and then took Lucy on a hike. I fell pretty badly at the top and had to hike to the bottom with no skin on my hands. I did a bad job bandaging them up at home before I almost passed out from the sight of all the blood. Mom came home and took care of the rest of my cuts.

Day Nineteen- Tuesday

I am at this point where I just feel such a crossroads- I read about this girl 3 years ahead of me in school who just published a book. When she was my age she quit her job and moved home to devote herself to writing. She spent a year writing, 6 months editing, then pitching and now she has this published beautiful thing. 

I want to finish something. Then I was reading a field guide to getting lost and in it Rebecca Solnit talks about how when she was 25 she also devoted herself fully to writing. I just can’t shake it this feeling that that is what I want to do. I want to tell stories. Mine others ours. I think I have so much to tell and so much done and need to just get a handle on it.

Quarantine has given me the mental space and mental break to think about this, to think about my regular life and what I want it to be. To think about what is worth my time.

A story: my father often can't relate to the immigrant experience in this country. my mother tells me the story of how my parents found themselves in their early 30s with 3 kids, their home no longer allowed them access to work- they had grown up there, lived there, had family, friends, a whole life and they couldn’t stay anymore. The closest job my father would be able to get was 2.5 hours roundtrip every day. My mother never finished college, and couldn’t get a job to make enough money to support us. They had no option but to leave. 

And my father can't relate to immigrants.

We moved back to our childhood when we moved here my mother said. They moved back in time. To when kids could roam their neighborhoods freely, and taxes weren’t inflated and they could afford to put 4 kids on swim team and through summer camp.

My mother talks about the loneliness when she first moved here. Putting us to bed and crying on the stairs in the mostly empty house.

My father talks about how he didn’t change the registration on his car or get a new license for a while because he missed his friends and didn’t know if we would stay.

It was 17 years up here before our taxes hit the same amount they'd been when we left New York.

We gained they lost, we never really fit in

Day Twenty- Wednesday 

Went to Cape Cod with Mom and Lucy.

Day Twenty-one- Thursday

Amazing day at the beach.

Day Twenty-two- Friday

I called Jacob this morning to check in as he was supposed to go to New Mexico for Kyle's memorial. When he answered the phone I could sense how tense he was. He said everyone was backing out of letting him stay with them, a bunch of people weren't going anymore, and he was worried he shouldn't go. He said he would call me back in 5 minutes. It was an hour, and he had decided not to go.

He said he's mad about covid, but with something like this I think we're always mad about the same thing: losing someone we love.

A terrible time to lose someone, is what everyone’s been saying. There is no good time.

Day Twenty-three- Saturday

We spent most of the day at the beach, sunbathing, swimming, laughing, sleeping, drinking eating- and I almost forgot.

Day Twenty-four- Sunday

Father's Day- we went and hiked the Pamet Rd Cranberry bog. Jacob came with us. It took us up the dunes to this beautiful overlook, then to a second one that came down to a secret beach. The water shining below. We drove through Wellfleet- adorable. We went to the bay in the afternoon and rolled around in the water.

For the evening, we packed in the cars and headed over to the drive in for a double feature- first Jaws then Jurassic Park. 

I’m sitting on the deck writing this and a cardinal is in the tree singing. Cardinals to me are always my grandfather. The last day I saw him, we were sitting in his living room, his eyes glassy and he said look a cardinal and pointed to the backyard.

Day Twenty-five Monday

Jacob's last day on the cape is cloudy and colder. We pack up the car and drive to the tip, through P town which is bustling in spite of the pandemic. Out to race point, we try to go to the lighthouse and the GPS is pointing us but the road it wants us to take is sanded over and they aren’t issuing permits today. 

We sit out on the race point beach for a while, the tide is high and the seals are only about 10 feet from shore or so. We sit for a while and Jacob lets me hold him. 

We grab sandwiches in Ptown and head back to the house. We go for a swim in the bay at low tide, rolling around in the shallow water. We shower back at the house and he leaves.

I go back to the bay with my dad and my sister, we bring the dog and run her across the wide sand bars. They head back but I walk as far as I can out to the edge. The sandbars spread out for nearly a mile. Occasionally the water between them is as deep as my ankles, but I can walk through. I walk until I am at the edge of the bay. It looks like I am at the edge of all land, but unlike the ocean there is no crashing waves, no loud water. It's like another planet. I look out at it and walk back home.

Day Twenty-six- Tuesday

Today I am restless. I am all too aware of it being our last full day here. I meditate early and my mind is spinning about getting to the beach, getting a good spot, getting a parking space, bringing the dog. Lying in the hammock early, I am thinking mostly about how the anxious thoughts are keeping me from enjoying anything, whether I get there or not they won’t stop. With this thought they quiet briefly.

My parents leave early to go kayaking and I drink my coffee on the porch. I am feeling spent. The mantra played in my head you can’t pour from an empty cup and I knew I needed to take time to fill mine. 

This whole week has been an amazing feat of disconnecting. Sometimes with my parents, it seems like a 21st century skill they haven’t developed is boundaries. They read every email from work they get no matter how it upsets them, or when it comes in. They watch and listen to the 24 hour news cycle constantly, also knowing it will upset them, and then they want to talk about it with indignation, spewing the hostility and toxicity and letting it tear them down.

I came of age in a time when there was nothing to be enchanted by in this country. I have been disenchanted since I left home at 18. I am aware enough to know the pit that is disappointment with America is bottomless, and you will only continue to fall down it if you do not every once in a while pull over onto a ledge and catch your breath.

I don’t feel guilty with all that is going on coming here and taking care of myself and my family. If we are all just drowning and not building up strength I don’t believe anything will happen. I believe it is just as much a responsibility to take action, a type of taking action, to take care of yourself. To give yourself the space to be a good listener, action taker, play maker, and entrenching yourself in the news cycle is not to me, productive.

I sit in the hammock. I drink 2 cups of coffee. I get dressed and go on a hike out to the secret beach we found the other day.

The surf is high, the seals are close, I don’t dare go in past my ankles but roll around in the white water to get wet, and walk as far as the driftwood tree that looks upright as you approach but is completely slanted when we see it from the side.

Laying on my towel watching the big waves roll I feel free nourished and happy. Alone on one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen daydreaming about quitting my job and moving to California, investing in myself in this new way.

I don’t stop often to think if it is too big a move but I think about it today- think about how I could stay here and try to move out to the Cape and write, get a job as a guidance counselor at a local school, endure the winters, wait for the summer. Could stay on with my job and launch youth programs on the cape. I think about asking for a different position, a move to another team or department, but do they have what I want here? I dream about digging in instead of going off. Is it too big a move?

Then I think about the hiking and swimming and world that is northern California and I feel excited. It’s a strange mindscape to swim in, wondering if you’re making the right choice.

I think it’s important to remember what I’ve learned, that the right move is much more about you than it is about the place. 

I left the secret beach, came home, took the dog to the beach, swam and laid as the wind blew fiercely. Came home to just me and mom and wrote out on the deck.

Taking the day the year life as it comes. The happiest I felt today was when I was on the secret beach with the big waves. The happiest I often feel is when I happen upon something I wasn’t expecting, something I didn’t plan for. Letting the world surprise me as opposed to planning out the pleasure we will have, seeking it at predictable places like the public beach only to check it off our list and think about what we will do next.

Taking the present for what it is and being pleased with it. It is a harder thing to do. A challenge. Taking the world as it comes. Knowing that if I move, it will never be so simple as to say moving will make me happier than staying, or moving is the wrong choice. We can be happy nearly anywhere. I am not- in moving to California next year- forgoing some beautiful life where I live on the cape all summer and see my family often.

I can’t move with one foot in and one foot out. I have to move with the world wide open before me, ready to be surprised and pleased. I have to move knowing that the worst parts are things I may not be able to see but so are the best parts. That’s what I have to remember- the best parts I do not know yet.

I won’t be able to think it through to a point where I feel good about it, to a point where I feel sure about it. I just have to feel sure that I will make it work and that I don’t know what will happen, but that I am capable of taking a walk and being most pleased with what I wasn’t expecting.

Day Twenty-seven- Wednesday

Last day on the Cape is just me and mom. I took the day off work. We woke and walked down to the bay to drink our coffee. We took Lucy down to Harwich and walked on some private streets and private beaches that weren’t supposed to have dogs on them. The weather was windy cold, the surf big- no one saw us. My mom does that stuff and my dad doesn’t. We went back to the house and had lunch. We went to the beach with Lucy and spent a few hours watching the surfers. I took one last swim.

Day Twenty-eight- Thursday

We were up at 5:30 this morning to get back home. I went kayaking and hiking. I had a few epiphanies today, I had a call with my coworkers. 

Day Twenty-nine- Friday

My mind is racing today. I am thinking of the monotony of these days. Having the discipline to use this time well. School is out for the summer. In quarantine I have had so much time to think about what I really want. I am committed to moving to the west coast next summer- it's no time to leave a job if you have one. I am committed to writing but would like to build it more into my life.  I think this summer is a good test for that, and I want to over the next three months make a real effort to create a real project. I want to invest in myself. I am reading about these women these writers I admire who at my age dedicated themselves to it. I think if I dedicate myself I can really do it but I also understand that I might not be ready to tell my story yet.

Day Thirty- Saturday

I’ve spent a good amount of time in the last few days reading through all my old tweets. In high school I tweeted about 3-5 times per day, and it's really not necessary that this be published on the internet. I've deleted the account but kept the tweets I really like.

Day Thirty-one- Sunday

Started the day with a cup of coffee and Greys Anatomy. We’re supposed to get thunder storms in the afternoon so set out for a big hike in the morning. I had hiked this trail once before but it had probably been about six years, and I didn’t remember much. It took me a while to find it, but once I did was brought to this gorgeous waterfall with a swimming hole. I kept hiking, the whole trail is an old carriage road with stone walls lining either side of the path. It takes you up this ridge in town. Essentially the town kept it so that you could drive right up the south side of the ridge and the houses are all at the top, but they never finished the old road on the north side, so it has now become this quiet protected testament to the beginnings.

I always wondered why our town didn’t have more houses on the ridges, it's the only place I like to spend my time here but instead we are all squished together in the valley below. Walking this old road, I was amazed at the extent of the stone walls, they had been built by hands hundreds of years ago. I came around a bend at one point and the wall looked like it had been laid so recently, it was still so intact, just a bit of moss. There was perfect opening and I walked through. I looked around for a foundation but didn’t see one, the property according to the walls was large. I left it and kept walking- thinking maybe it had just been the farmland. Further down, in a separate plot I came across a crumbled foundation. There was a stone right where it started, like a welcome mat that I stood on. Thinking of it now, later on, I think of all this space standing so still and quiet as it had been. This old haunted land, sacred, just occupied by its memories. 

When I got to the top of the trail there was a house right there, then the paved road started and the neighborhood began and the slow spell that had been building was broken. I turned back to return to it and when I got to the bottom I swam under the waterfall in my clothes.

Day Thirty-two- Monday

The days are running together and I forgot it was Monday. As I reported to a coworker, I am working like an on-call doctor, waiting to be paged. There is so little for us to do, and I am not in the mood for busy work.

I met Ashley at the river today, a spot I hadn’t been to before. I am connecting with these places in a way I haven’t before.

Day Thirty-three- Tuesday

Day Thirty-four- Wednesday

It only took 34 days of keeping this diary before a post like this was bound to come. Jimmy was at work when he texted my parents to let them know someone at the pool tested positive for covid. He said it was a member of the pool, they weren’t giving details.

He had to get a test.

He came home early from work and we told him to quit, it wasn’t worth the extra thousand bucks to go back, I’ll get into the politics and privilege of this in a later post. 

I was supposed to go to Boston later that day, Allie was supposed to go to Salem, mom was going to see Grammy. We all cancelled our plans, Jimmy went to his room and we waited.

We found out later that night it wasn’t a pool member, it was a fellow lifeguard- someone he sat inside with without a mask and had talked to a day before.

Day Thirty-five- Thursday

Jacob and I went back and forth all day about whether or not it was a good idea for me to come up, with me ultimately deciding to wait for the test to come back.

It’s been a strange summer. It’s been raining all week, it reminds me of that chapter in Little Women where they stop working, and have too much fun so it’s not fun anymore.

I just want to get out of here and out of there.

Jimmy went for his test and continued quarantining.

Day Thirty-six- Friday

We continue to wait. I went for a walk and swam in the waterfall this morning. The dog has been weird so it's been good to get her out.

Mom has been a bit overwhelmed by the stress. 

Allie is totally content to watch Greys Anatomy all day and I feel like my brain is melting.

Day Thirty-seven- Saturday

Good morning- I awoke feeling a bit out of balanced. The last two mornings I woke up at 4:30 to go to the bathroom and struggled to fall back to sleep. I miss my bed, I miss my boyfriend, I miss my space and my independence.

When I was a kid I said that I didn’t see the point in homesickness or missing things- because by the time you got them you might just end up missing what you left. I was incredibly wise as a child. 

The thing is I know that I just got a bad night sleep and need not worry that this is a manifestation of some greater unhappiness. I know that I didn’t wake up wanting to seize the day because I slept poorly.

Day Thirty-eight- Sunday

No test results.

Day Thirty-nine- Monday

Went swimming at a state park with Allie- had so much fun, no test results.

Day Forty- Tuesday

Did a little work but otherwise have been doing no work. No test results. Driving myself crazy looking for someone to fill the rooms in my apartment, need to relax we have plenty of time.

Day Forty-one- Wednesday

Test results came back negative. We figured by this point they were, because even though the test took seven days, it had been well over ten since his exposure. It’s confusing because there’s the data that says if you have it, 90% of cases manifest in 2 days. Then there’s the data that says you can spread it while asymptomatic.

Day Forty-two- Thursday

Went to Boston to finally see Jacob.

Day Forty-three- Friday

Didn’t sleep at all last night, not until 6:00am. The stress of being back in a city in a pandemic- overwhelming.

Day Forty-four- Saturday

Found a nice new pond to go to, where there’s room to spread out, and the world feels ok.

Day Forty-five- Sunday

Alone for the first time in ages as Jacob went to work and I stayed an extra day. Found myself very sad, crying, processing things I hadn’t realized had been weighing on me. The whole time I’ve been in this pandemic, I have been living in situations where I am part of a dynamic- rarely alone.

Day Forty-six- Monday

Back at my parents. Looking for new roommates, overwhelmed.

Day Forty-seven- Tuesday

Found new roommates, still overwhelmed. Been sad for days, getting ready to leave.

Day Forty-eight- Wednesday

READY TO GO. Everyone’s on edge, I feel stunted here. I feel trapped here. I feel trapped there but need my own space. Need to just be free. So exhausted. So drained stressed tired of everything.

Day Forty-nine- Thursday

Had some work to do, didn’t feel like doing it.

Barely slept last night. I was just feeling so heavy. I realized it was all coming from this stuff with Jacob. It may not feel so heavy otherwise- but pandemic

I had work in the afternoon, something I am feeling completely unmotivated about.

I told my mom before dinner that I was leaving in a week and she started crying and told me how much she loved me and that she didn’t want me to ever feel like I couldn’t be here.

Day Fifty- Friday

Rainy day, did a whole lot of nothing. Walked the dog. Cleaned out the attic. I am getting close to no longer living in my parents’ house.

Day Fifty-one- Saturday

Amazing amazing day. Went to Zack’s parents’ house on the shore, took the boat to the beach in Rhode Island. Had happy hour and dinner. Found myself rejuvenated to be among friends, good old friends. 

Day Fifty-two- Sunday

Good day. Went swimming with mom and Allie, got bit by a leach. Going to miss my dog.

Day Fifty-three- Monday

Woke up this morning from a text from a number I didn’t recognize but soon figured out who it was. She was writing to me and three of my friends from high school (I only talk to one of them now) to say that our other friend’s brother had died the day before. He had been in a car accident.

My head swam a bit, waiting for it to sink in. He had been somewhat estranged from his siblings on and off over the years, had struggled with addiction from some time but seemingly been doing better in the last ten years. A car accident.

I called my friend because I didn’t know how to write about it in a text message. She answered to my surprise and said she was so sad.

My parents asked if I was going to go see her.

I looked it up online and found the article quickly. He had been driving southbound, a car coming from the opposite direction misjudged a left turn and turned into the side of his car. The man who hit him was unharmed, physically. He was 80. My friend’s brother was 33. 47 years of life lost between them.

Day Fifty-four- Tuesday

The news of his death lingers over me all night and all day. The circumstances. He didn’t have a partner, children of his own. Last I heard he still hadn’t found his dream job. The real work of his young adulthood had been overcoming, fighting back his demons, his addictions. Only to get past them to die in this way.

Day Fifty-five- Wednesday

I finally heard from my friend today. They cleaned out her brother’s apartment, and had a viewing at the funeral home all in one day. She said it felt like 100 years passed by in 12 hours.

Day Fifty-six- Thursday

One of our other friends has reached out to me about his death. She wants to know when the funeral is, she wants us all to go. This morning she posted a selfie on Instagram, saying she was having a great day.

I feel like we are having different experiences. One of us feeling sadness and pain. One of us trying to do all the things you’re supposed to do, but not personally affected.

She has what  I think of as a complex of toxic positivity- not dwelling on what we can’t change, so there’s no room for sadness or pain.

Day Fifty-seven- Friday

I leave home today. All that has happened these last few days has overshadowed the momentousness of the occasion. Jacob came and picked me up- returning here for the first time in two months since he left. We continue driving west to the Catskills, we have a reservation to stay on this man’s property that he posted online. 

We get there- we had plans to go out to eat but as soon as we arrive to the spot, in a clearing on top of a slope, with a panoramic view of mountains enclosing us all around- we both don’t want to leave.

We sit for hours, watching the light change on the peak right in front of us.

Day Fifty-eight- Saturday

We content ourselves most of the morning filtering water from the stream, reading, looking at the mountain. In the afternoon we drive back the way we came to a pull-off where we can roll around in the river running through this part of the mountains.

Day Fifty-nine- Sunday

It is hot- we make our way back to Boston, stopping at a sculpture garden along the way. All I want to do is swim. I sleep at Jacob’s as we get back late.

Day Sixty- Monday

I returned to my apartment today for the first time in over four months. It so coincidentally lined up with being the last date of this journal I am keeping. I walk in and find it so nice to be back.

I take a walk in my neighborhood and find myself a bit afraid. In my CT life with my parents, I mostly stayed in our house, on our land. When I left, I would be alone in my car, or on some remote hike with my dog. I hardly ever intercepted anyone. Here however, simply taking a walk I am on edge, on guard. The risk of exposure is maximized. And not until I am sitting in a park, far from a path, do I feel a bit at ease.

I spend the day cleaning out my room- having not had any of it for four months I easily make decisions on clothes and mementos I can part with. I vacuum, dust, wipe down. Pile up two tall baskets of laundry. I feel independence, peace, and surprise that I can both be happy here, and as I have been these past four months, happy at home.