2020- A Cat and Rat Race
[This is a personal journal, and the longest I have written in a while]
When we grew up, we never imagined a pandemic to halt our lives. There was no risk mitigation and no Plan B. Especially for us 20-something millennials, who are just out to make something of life. We don’t know about investments, emergency funds, backup plans at all, because in a lot of ways we are building everything from scratch. 2020 was crucial for all of us. Some of us started jobs we always wanted, others got into grad schools, and many were on their way to achieve bits and pieces of their dreams. We did not know that our Fulbright applications, our newly rented homes, our trips we always dreamt of, and our employment will all suddenly become uncertain. Our present and future will become so uncertain.
When the first lockdown started, everything came to a standstill. The whole world paused. The skies cleared up from the factories closing, we sat down with our families on the dining table for the first time in the longest time, and suddenly hugs and human touch were precious. It was a time of great fear and it was also a time for introspection.
I have lost count of the number of times I heard words and phrases like “Post-Covid world,” “the new normal,” “the way forward,” and more. In my heart, I knew there was no normal and no post-covid world for a while. And yet I was amazed at the human tendency to be optimistic and to hope. What I have also been amazed it is the ease with which we can adapt to whatever life throws at us, be it a fatal virus that took only 3 months to engulf the entire world and kill millions.
I was one of the privileged ones during the lockdown. I was around my family, I had my job, and I had just gotten rid of a bully. I was also contemplating letting go of a very important person in life, because the pandemic had given me too much time to sit down and think about what I wanted. So I took all impulsive decisions I could take. It was a year of uncertainty, but I was certain I didn’t want to die with regrets. I talk of death because one month in the lockdown, I was thinking too much of death. Something had triggered my past trauma, and I had to seek therapy. And hence why I am here, fine and thriving, or so I like to imagine.
I started feeling unsettled when the world did go back to its norms. I was suddenly looking at a world that was bruised and bleeding, and yet not stopping. Over the past year, I have hoped multiple times for the world to slow down and take a break. The BS talk of motivational speakers and quotes like “Life goes on” have made me gag various times. I do appreciate positivity, as long as it is not toxic. But this was toxic. Without considering a world which suffered a massive loss, we went on and on about racing. Sometimes I don’t know what we are against. The state? The power structures? Patriarchy? All of them have benefitted this year from our acts. More surveillance, more control on our lives, growing inequality, and on top of all this, indifference to the loss of human life.
I have no idea what this personal essay of mine intends to do. I just want it all out. With everything happening around me, I have felt at multiple moments that what I went through personally does not warrant me any right to rant or complain, as the world collectively went through so much. And yet I know it is wrong. No traumas should be compared, no tragedy should minimize what I feel. Our lives and our lived experience
I want the world to stop and take a pause in 2021. Work projects, elections, violence, wars, grad schools, all of it should pause. I want us to sit down and focus on what we are feeling in a world that has been burned and that has been sick. As I write this, I am in awe of my capacity to wish so much from a crooked and vile place that’s earth.
