I, like everyone else, am having the sobering moment of realizing it’s been a year since this pandemic started. And what a way to end this year than a natural disaster (shout out Texas weather, Snowpocalypse 2021). A year ago, I was in Boston sitting for the Bar exam completely unaware that there was a COVID breakout happening in Seaport, or even what COVID was. I had a whole month of travel ahead of me, or so I thought. I was going to Virginia, then I’d be going to Florida for a wedding, a small stop in Dallas, and I’d end off the month of March with a nice little trip to Austin, TX. SIKE. I’ve always been horrible at sitting still, but as you can imagine it was quite a shock to come home after being in Virginia for almost two weeks feeling like I narrowly missed my last chance for a flight back. I am not joking when I say I damn near flew through every major airport during the beginning of this pandemic. What a hot start to quarantine.
I’ve been reflecting a lot on how much this last year has changed all of our lives, better or worse, and how almost naïve I was before this to how flimsy the house of cards I was living in was really. Two years ago, I was in Virginia, three years ago I was in New York City in an extremely high populated Times Square, four years ago I was a new Boston resident with a dear friend from college visiting from across the country, and five years ago I was in Dallas getting ready to apply for law schools. Funny how things come full circle. I’ve always been on the move and I’m not going to pretend that the pandemic has completely disabled my wanderlust because it hasn’t. But it certainly has made me stop and think about my priorities across the board of where I want to be, what I want to be doing, and how I want to be spending my money.
I’ve sat back and watched painfully a city I love and fully planned on staying in post grad not only sort of disappear before my eyes but also no longer make sense for me in this moment in my life. Almost every bar, restaurant, etc. that holds sentimental value or meaning to me is gone. And I am not the only one that had these big life moments at these places, we are talking 20-50 years’ worth of business wiped away within months of a pandemic. It’s heartbreaking. For some reason recently watching the place I had my first meal at after moving up there close its doors has hurt the most. It’s almost like I’ve watched everything I’ve experienced and love about my time in Boston disappear all the way up to the beginning. I’ve watched events like the Boston Marathon get canceled for the first time in its history. Naturally, just as I have moved away several of my good friends have as well. We can chalk that up to the pandemic or we can chalk that up to life moves on after you graduate. Either way, I’ve had to grieve and accept the city I love, the experiences I had, both of which I miss, no longer exists. Such is life.
Now don’t get me wrong, Boston is a hell of a lot stronger than packing it in because of a pandemic. Nor is it the only one going through these changes. All of these cities are going to adapt to survive and life will move on like it always does. But just as they will, so have we. That means for most of us our priorities have adapted and changed for the present reality. It no longer makes sense to me to spend an insane amount on rent for a tiny apartment I could be stuck in for long periods of time. Not only do I think it would be horrible for my mental health, financially it seems insane when you don’t even really get to enjoy the city you are in. While yes, many of us are living in places fully intending and planning to re-open by summer: I personally can’t pretend like all of the big valid questions this last year raised about the way I was living are just going to vanish the second everything goes back to “normal”.
I mean what is normal? I’m not sure we will ever fully be back to what we envision as normal, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. We’d gotten so accustomed to having everything instantly, to assuming once we had a job it was secure pending our performance or the company itself found itself in financial trouble, to thinking we don’t really need to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Incredibly naïve and arrogant, but I used to think even if I can’t land a legal job straight out of school, I will be able to get A job in the meantime. Even if it meant waiting tables. Never in a million years would I think, “and if the service industry collapses: what’s the next option?” I used to feel like I can sacrifice space and some extra money for city living because I can take vacations where I’ll have space. Now I feel like I NEED space, I can visit the city. I still do live in a city and will probably always live in one. My city just looks different these days.
It’s also brought new challenges in self-care. I’ve realized I keep trying to hold myself to a standard for something that doesn’t exist anymore, pre-pandemic life. I don’t need, nor do I have the ability, to be as active anymore. Where would I be go-go-going to? I’ve had to learn to sit my ass home on a multitude of levels. I never used to even consider working from home as a factor in job hunting, now I have that high on my priority list. I’ve watched people I know and strangers on the internet voice the toll this whole year has taken on them mentally, I relate. But what I’m starting to realize is a lot of my mental stress and anxiety is just the feeling of having absolutely no control over what is going on. And I am so sorry to be a bubble burster on this one, but, the reality is we never did. If anything, this has given us the blessing of realizing how little we really can control and what we are doing about it. A blessing and a curse.
So, if no one else (yourself included) has given you permission yet: It’s OK to mourn a life you had pre-pandemic and that it may never exist again. It’s OK to be emotionally exhausted if you think too much about everything you can’t control but need to deal with. It’s OK for your priorities to have changed. It’s OK to be kind to yourself for having a learning curve of how to handle post-pandemic life. For now, I am continuing to try and live and focus on the present. I’m continuing to try and be thoughtful in asking myself where I want to be and what I want to be doing. I’m continuing to try and be realistic and thoughtful about where I spend my time and money traveling to, if anywhere. About the people I put myself around. About the content I consume. Most importantly, I’m actively trying to learn to be nice to myself and patient while I learn to adapt to a scenario I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be living through. I hope you do the same.
With Love,
Kels
Volume III 
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