Last week I was randomly struck by a thought: why 2020 has been such a trying year for everyone. I grabbed a pen, opened my journal, and let my ideas flow freely onto the page. When I was done, the tension that hung heavy in the air started to make sense.
In my most recent blog post, I mentioned that a pandemic alone would be enough to put the entire world on edge, the same way a presidential election would as well. Throw those two things together, and you essentially have a recipe for disaster—but this goes beyond that. It runs deeper.
Interestingly enough, you’d think a global pandemic would bring people together. And yet the tension’s so palpable, I can feel it coming through the walls of my home. It’s hard to ignore when it comes through our phone screens and social media, the second you step out the door. You can feel it in the air. It’s impossible to ignore.
COVID-19 was enough to put everyone on edge. Life as we knew it changed overnight. Things we could do before are no more. Everyone’s wearing a mask in public, businesses have closed, weddings have been cancelled, funerals have been delayed, travel plans disrupted, and everyone’s been separated from their loved ones at some point thanks to the lockdowns. There’s been a lot of loss all around.
I feel like with everyone being cooped up the way that they have, tensions would spread slowly—like a growing fever—until eventually it all comes to a boil and has nowhere else to go. This state of delirium has infected all of us; the tension we feel when we step outside was bubbling and building underneath the surface all along. It was bound ot come out eventually. And now it has.
But COVID-19 and the presidential election are only surface level. They’re both generalized, felt by the entire world. For me, those two things don’t even begin to cover the rest of this year. Funnily enough, it seems like this is the same case across the board. It seems like everyone’s been dealt a bad hand of cards this year.
For me, it started with my neck, on the first day of this year, actually. I woke up January 1, 2020, and could not move my neck whatsoever. I was in searing pain. Now, I’m in pain 24/7 thanks to my neck, but this was bad. Really, really, really bad. My first thought when I opened my eyes that morning was: ‘this is not good.’ It felt like a bad omen. This was so bad that I actually called my orthopedic up and asked if I could get in earlier than my originally planned January 16 visit because I knew something had to give. I couldn’t wait any longer, I’d been waiting for two and a half years at that point. Fast forward to January 3, and I walk into the orthopedic’s office, only to be told that thanks to my new health insurance, I needed a referral from my primary care physician and the doctor couldn’t see me. By the time I finally got that referral, it was practically February. Now, I detailed what came next in this confessional, and after that, I waited to get in to see a neurosurgeon.
During this time, my grandma got sick for the first time ever in my life. At this point I was only 24, so it was the first time in 24 years that I’d ever seen her sick. She had fluid in her lungs, and had to go to the hospital to get it drained. That was extremely scary for myself and entire family, and it rocked all of us. She made two hospital visits total, and was home before COVID hit and put everyone and everything on lockdown (thank God). This was scary because it really put into perspective how big a role my grandma played in all of our lives. We always knew it, but when there’s something you’ve known your entire life, you really don’t think twice about it.
Fast forward to the beginning of May, and I’m finally able to see a neurosurgeon. At this point, my neck was (and still is) at the worst it’s ever been. Despite not wanting to get my hopes up in case I was disappointed, I was more hopeful than I’d like to admit, which really backfired on me when I was brushed off and essentially told the same thing I had been all along. That day was the first day since my car accident on August 5, 2017, that I’ve cried about it. Not once did I cry before that. It made me feel hopeless, and for the first time, I found myself unoptimistic about the future. After feeling the pain worsening, increasing nerve pain, loss of feeling in my fingers and toes, even more loss of any semblance of a normal life, it was a major let down. I’m currently in the middle of trying to get a second opinion. It’s been frustrating, to say the least, lol.
The last week of July, after my grandmother was doing well—doing everything independently again, driving her Mercedes to go out and do her own shopping like always—she unexpectedly got sick and had to go to the hospital. What ensued was an up-and-down roller coaster of emotions and adrenaline, until she passed on August 1. A loss that has reverberated throughout everyone who was close to her. My grandma lived with my family for 19 years, she was such a big part of our lives. The world feels emptier without her in it. She was my role model. I’ve never experienced a loss like this, the ups and downs of grief, but I’ve been trying to channel her strength—everyone who ever met her said she was the strongest person in the world—and keep moving forward.
I was talking to someone the other day, and they asked if I thought COVID was getting to me. I told them no, and that I’ve been OK with it since the beginning, since it’s something everyone’s been dealing with. And yet after that conversation, I found myself thinking about it some more. And then I realized something: we’ve all been cooped up for nearly 11 months. Not only that, but the things we could escape to are no more. There’s only about 4 restaurants I like in Rhode Island, and 2 of them closed their doors thanks to COVID. There’s no more casual trips to a bar for a quick drink, or a spontaneous night out. Pop culture, sports, all news, social media, and magazines have all become political. The only place we can really escape now is in our homes—within the same 4 walls we’ve been staring at this entire year. Sure, you can read books or play video games within those walls, but that’s the thing—it’s within those same 4 walls. The weather is now turning colder, and soon enough some of us won’t be able to go outside for some fresh air when we need it. No matter how big of a homebody you are, it’s still a lot. I feel like all of this—being cooped up—has been the catalyst for tensions really coming to a head.
So where do we go from here? Well, it’s hard to say, because God only knows what’s going to happen with COVID, but there are other ways to deal with the unsettled restlessness felt by the entire world.
I think getting off social media, for starters, is the best thing all of us can do. Besides, that, though, I think people need to remember how to be kind to one another, how to not judge people if they have a different opinion than we do. No one in the world is going to agree on everything—that’s a simple fact of life—and that’s okay. We need to remember that none of us are perfect. We need to stop judging others so harshly. We need to learn how to laugh again, to find the joy in life. We need to get outside and appreciate the beauty of nature. We need to stop and be grateful for what we have. That’s the only way we’re going going to cut the tension in the world. It starts within ourselves. Sure, 2020 has been a trying year, and who knows what 2021 will bring—all we can do is focus on ourselves and staying positive, no matter what. No one else—not even the government or social media—controls your happiness but you.
